


Fifty Grand

by bshiat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Bounty Hunter, M/M, Movie Fusion, One for the money
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-15 05:28:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16927338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bshiat/pseuds/bshiat
Summary: Movie Fusion: One for the MoneyJohn needs money, and ends up taking a bounty hunter job. His first target? None other than Rodney McKay, his old high school boyfriend. He can't wait to get his hand on the fifty grand bounty. Getting revenge on McKay's just a bonus.





	Fifty Grand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Brumeier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/gifts).



> I have most definitely never written anything like this before. I also cannot believe that the rating of something I've written - that's *this* long - is only a T! People really can change. I'm not sure if you need to see One For The Money before reading this - I hadn't, before writing it - but it might make some action scenes easier to imagine.
> 
> To my Secret Santa Giftee, I truly hope you enjoy this. I love your work (can't believe the mods matched me up with you!) so I have to admit it was a bit daunting to write you a gift at all! :D
> 
> Thanks to AlphaPackUSA for the last minute Beta! You're a life saver. :)
> 
> And of course a huge thank you to the lovely mods for hosting this, and bringing holiday cheer to us all! <3

John hates it when people ask where he grew up, or what his childhood was like. “Mostly just outside New York” shuts some of them up, but there are some who want a goddamn itinerary of all the places he’s been dragged to, because of course the heir of Sheppard industries must have gone to the most exclusive boarding schools, and skied in the Alps every winter.  _ “And Paris? You’ve been to Paris, right?” _

He has no interest in discussing all the different places he’d been dragged to, even less will to talk about what it’s like to be homeschooled until turning sixteen. Tutors were all the same, and it’s not fun starting your social development at age sixteen due to an absentee father who stuck you in hotel rooms and mansions with sixty year old professors to teach you. Not to mention the ironclad set of rules that made him want to pull his own teeth out. It honestly makes no sense, in retrospect, why he ever signed up for service.

_ Fuck it,  _ he thinks, making a right,  _ I need a detour.  _ He gets on the highway and soon enough he’s speeding away from his destination. It’s fine, he’ll loop around, he just wants half an hour more of this. Of tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, enjoying the feel of the asphalt under this beautiful car that he can no longer afford.

As if on cue, his stomach grumbles. That might be the one good reason not to delay his visit home for long. His fridge had been empty to the point of not even having milk, so he’d been driving, hungry, for the last four hours. He’d been tempted to buy a gas station hot dog, but not tempted enough get stuck on the road, so he’d sadly handed over his last tenner to pay for gas.

“Fashionably late as always. Food’s  _ been  _ ready, you know,” Dave drawls, shaking his head as John doesn’t even bother parking his car, leaving it in front of the house with the keys in. “He’s not a fan of waiting.”

“Hey Dave,” John says with a smile. He wonders if their father had sent his brother out to go search for him, or if Dave pretended to need a smoke to get out of the house. Neither would surprise him. “Long time no see.” They hug briefly, and John can’t wipe the grin off his face. He can’t help it, there’s just something about having his brother around that he can’t hate, even if they’re back in this damn house.

“I thought you might be dead,” Dave says lightly.

“You always say that.” He doesn’t roll his eyes.

“That’s because I’ve seen you drive,” Dave shoots back dryly.

“Hey,” John objects as they walk inside, “If you’re not going to give her all you’ve got, why get a sports car at all?”

“I’m sure that’s exactly what all those people dying in car crashes think.”

  
“No,  _ I’m  _ pretty sure they have their hands full texting.”

“Whatever, asshole, don’t expect me to say it was the  _ other  _ driver’s fault at your funeral when you eventually manage to kill yourself.”

Their father’s silent and only mumbles something that might have been “hello” and nods as they sit down. From the looks of it, they really have been waiting a while. Patrick’s breathing just a tad heavier than normal. John secretly admires his ability to keep his composure when so clearly frustrated.

“The salads, Linda. And warm bread. These are cold as stone.”

The maid makes quick work of the offensive bread basket and returns shortly with a tray of salads decorated much too elaborately for where they’re about to go in a few minutes.

“As I was saying earlier,” Patrick says, staring at Dave in a way that isn’t even close to being casual. “Guess who got a new patent with the army?”

“Not sure, dad,” Dave responds, and John can’t tell whether he’s doing it to humor Patrick, or if he really doesn’t know. Would be a surprise, these days Dave’s usually more up-to-date with the business than even Patrick. As far as John knows, anyway. He’s been trying very hard to keep out of it.

“You’ll never guess.” Patrick waits for Dave to try guessing for a few seconds before getting cut off by John.

“Well, tell us then. If we can’t guess.”

Patrick shoots him an unimpressed look, as if wondering why John was even at that table with them. But John knows better. Patrick would’ve killed to have John genuinely interested in the family business, and is only bitter because he knows John’s being sarcastic. “Jimmy. The son of Mazoor. The one with the odd ears? It’s all top secret of course, and we weren’t shareholders in that project, but it’s apparently satellite related. Very lucrative.”

_ I thought you weren’t interested in engineers, only businessmen?  _ John bites back. Today of all days, he can’t afford to antagonize his father further. Things are embarrassing enough.

After a few words about the subject to his father, Dave turns to John, and frowns. “You’re not eating.”

“I…” He takes a deep breath. It’s now or never. “I have some bad news.”

A beat of silence, then, surprisingly, it’s Patrick who speaks, and not Dave. “You have it, don’t you?” It’s not quite contempt that’s in his voice, but he sure as hell doesn’t sound happy. “They say there’s newer - better - drugs now, and---”

“Fucking Christ dad, I don’t have… I’m not  _ sick.” _

Patrick goes back to eating his salad with a shrug, as if this is the most normal thing to be talking about. John tries to count to ten, and makes it to four before he speaks. “I got fired,” he grits out.

“What, from-- What was it called, Dolly’s?”

“Yolly’s,” John corrects, hating the fact that he has to talk about being fired from a machine shop. “A few months ago,” he forces himself to say, because pathetic he might be, but he  _ has _ to let his father know that he didn’t come knocking on his door first day after losing his job.

“‘A few months’,” Patrick repeats, then takes a sip of his wine calmly.

“Bastards. And you’re telling us  _ now?”  _ Dave says, but he doesn’t sound angry.

“Yeah and, uh, I’ve got… Maybe ten minutes left with that car,” John says, looking up at Dave through his eyelashes, keeping his head uncharacteristically down. This is a new low, even for him. But dammit, he’d wanted to keep the car, returning it a month early wouldn’t have changed things  _ that  _ much. “So… That’s my news.” He straightens up. “Any other patents to talk about, then?”

“Maybe if you at least settled down, it would be easier,” Patrick says, and damn him if he doesn’t  _ say it  _ as if it  _ is  _ easy, as if John  _ meant _ to have his marriage fall apart. “Nancy always grounded you, I thought.”

“Holly’s single,” Dave says.

John wishes he was even more of an asshole so he could just answer ‘Holly who?’ but he can’t do that to Dave. “I don’t need a wife,” he says instead.

“Then get a husband,” Patrick sighs, and Dave does a spit-take, quickly grabbing a cloth napkin to wipe the wine off his shirt.

“Think I’d rather not,” John says. He wants to give himself a pat on the back for just how normal he’s managed to sound. “Last marriage didn’t quite work for me last time, did it? I don’t want another one.”

“A job, you mean?”

John clenches and unclenches his hands into fists underneath the table. He won’t give Patrick the satisfaction, he won’t. “As hard as it is to imagine,” he says, slowly, “There’s not a lot out there for a person with my qualifications. Been out of mathematics too long to catch up enough to be useful, and any other sort of job I like doing, they end up giving me the third degree about my discharge.”

“Honorable,” Dave points out, unhelpfully.

“It raises a flag or two when that happens at my age,” John tells the bottom of his glass.

Dave is dying to say that he’d hire John in a heartbeat, John knows, and feels a fresh wave of affection for his brother for not saying it. “I’ll find something again, soon, I just…” He’s about to say he’d like to stay with Dave for a week or two until then, when someone enters the room and knocks on the open door to get their attention.

“Ah, um, Mr. Sheppard, sir,” he stutters.

Both Patrick and Dave turn to him, but it’s Patrick who speaks. “Yes, Dave?”

John raises his eyebrows and looks at Dave who makes rolls his eyes at him.

“There’s-- There’s um, a tow truck outside the gates and they, uh, they’re saying--”

“It’s fine,” John says smoothly. “They’re here for my car. Let them take it.” He grabs a piece of bread and starts spreading butter on it to make a point of just how  _ casual  _ he’s being about this and how  _ normal _ this all is and can everybody please enjoy this pleasant and not at all awkward dinner?

“I didn’t think you meant  _ literally  _ ten minutes,” Dave laughs.

“You know I don’t lie, Dave,” John says, grinning.

“If only your honesty was matched by some good judgement.”

“My judgement  _ is  _ a little screwy,” he pretends to agree with his father. He actually thinks he has excellent judgement when it comes to morals and teammates and even family. He just hasn’t quite figured out how to live in this post-air force world he’s put himself in. Not that he regrets it.

“Maggie mentioned his cousin was trying to hire an intern, for filing,” Dave offers. Patrick looks like he’s about to snap his fork in half, when thankfully the maid takes their plates and cutlery away.

“Filing?” John asks, suddenly loving this idea. Simple, mindless task to earn a few dollars. Then he thinks about it for a second. “Wait, which cousin?”

“Alex.”

“She tried to make out with me. At my own  _ wedding.” _

“Everybody has flaws?”

  
“David…” John sighs, but he knows he’s going to try anyway. Even at minimum wage, he’d at least manage to eat while he looks for a real job.

~

David’s very reasonable, very family-friendly Lexus is  _ fine,  _ John supposes, but he misses being able to go over a hundred without the car telling him to slow down. He knows the speed limit, thank you. He’d tried to turn the music loud enough to ignore it until he’d gotten a text from Dave explaining the tracker was for his insurance and that he’d gotten texted about the “unusual driving” already. “And by the way,” Dave had added before hanging up, “Run a comb through your hair - or at least your fingers - to at least attempt to look presentable. It’s an  _ office.” _

“Alex liked my hair just fine  _ at my wedding,  _ Dave,” John had murmured after hanging up.

As he pulls up in front of the “office”, he looks at the map on his phone one more time to make sure he’s at the right place. It certainly doesn’t look like the sort of place any relative - blood or not - of Dave’s would work at. But the address is right, so he walks into the signless establishment.

“Oh! John Sheppard!” a young girl - maybe seventeen? - says enthusiastically, getting up from what John assumes is the secretary’s desk, and taking a few steps towards him. “Fancy seeing you here.” She moves her shoulders and sits on the desk in a way that makes John feel dirty somehow, nevermind the fact that he’s not even interested in girls much these days, let alone teenagers.

“Not here to make bail, right?” the girl says, grinning as if she really hopes he  _ is. _

_ What is with this girl? And why can’t I remember her? _

“No, not here to make bail,” he says, then starts looking around the office, finally understanding what sort of establishment he’s in.

“You look confused,” she points out, pouting a little. Before he can answer, she shifts her body a little again, then says: “I’m Morgan. Ben’s little sister?”

John remembers a Ben from high school, but his sister - from the father’s third wife - had been a good fifteen years younger than -  _ Oh.  _ **_Oh._ **

“Right. Morgan. Wow. How’s Ben? You’ve, uh, grown.”

She giggles and shakes her head. “Ben’s fine, I guess. Got a big house, boring life if you ask me. So what brings you to our side of the woods? Don’t Sheppards stay in WASP country?”

“I’m here to see Alex.”

Her eyebrows shoot up. “Regarding what?”

“I heard you have a filing job…?”

He can hardly blame the looks she gives him. No, he doesn’t look like the sort to enjoy filing, not like a teenager needing a temp job, but, well,...

“Nah,” she says, still looking him up and down oddly.

“‘Nah’?”

“We moved some files into storage, that’s when we needed an extra pair of hands. Couple days’ work only, and it was a crappy job. All day on your knees. If you’re gonna spend that much time on your knees, there are  _ much  _ more fun things to do, you know? Pays better, too.”

He is  _ not  _ imagining his friend’s  _ baby sister  _ being on her knees. Good lord. “Right. You guys got anything else? Full-time, part-time, freelance? I’m flexible. Just need something until I get my feet back on the ground.”

“Hmm,” she hums, running a thumb across her lips thoughtfully. “Maybe Alex’ll let you do some skip chasing. How comfortable are you with lowlifes?”

“Comfortable.”

He says nothing else, and she gives him another one of those looks that a teenager  _ really _ shouldn’t be giving a man twice her age, before nodding. “Ask her,” she says, nodding towards the office behind her.

~

“Got a man down,” Alex says, unexpectedly aloof and uninterested in why John’s in her office. There’s a big stack of files almost every surface high enough to be within hand’s reach. It looks like there might’ve been an extra desk and a library in there, at some point, now buried. “Ruptured appendix. Dis- _ gust _ -ing. These are his cases.” She throws what looks to be about two dozen files at him.

_ Well, at least I have options… _

He starts browsing. “FTA?” he asks.

“Failure to appear. Skipped out on bail. Bring him in, you get 10% of the bond. Not much at a time, but it adds up.” She looks defiant, as if she’s expecting him to belittle her, or something. As if he would ever do that, even if he hadn’t been here broke and begging for a job.

“Yeah,” he says slowly. “I can do this.”

“I don’t know,” Alex says. “You’d be dealing with criminals. Not sure you’d be up for it.”

“Well,” he half-jokes, “At this point I either bring in criminals, or  _ become  _ one. That’s where I’m at.”

“Is it really that bad?” she asks, her aloof act faltering a little.

“Yeah…” He’s skimming through the pages when a familiar picture pops up. “McKay?” he asks, eyes wide in surprise he can’t even begin to hide. “Rodney McKay skipped out on bail?”

“Oh no no no,” she says, trying to snatch the folder away from him, but he’s too fast and moves it out of her reach. “You stay away from that,” she warns. “Half a mil for that one.”

“I don’t need all that much, maybe we can make a deal,” John tries to reason. “Just let me put his ass in jail.” He’s not one to hold grudges and he certainly hasn’t been  _ obsessing  _ over McKay but, well, when life gives you lemons, might as well make lemonade and enjoy it a little, and he’s not above a little petty revenge. Besides, the man’s on the run, not like John would be hunting him down randomly.

“Somehow, I remain unconvinced,” she says dryly. When John doesn’t respond, she sighs. “Just… Take a couple of civil cases. And stay  _ away  _ from Rodney McKay. You’ll muck it up, I’ll lose my business, and his mother will lose her house. Only bad will come of it.”

“I thought his mom moved back to Canada?”

_ “John…” _

“I need the money.”

“No.”

Well, if she wants to be childish about it… “You stuck your tongue down my throat at  _ my wedding.”  _ Yup, he’s not above pettiness, clearly.

“I was drunk! I was drunk and, and, you looked like someone else. That wasn’t my fault!”

“I was wearing a tuxedo, with my wife - big white dress, veil, you know the one - about two feet from me. You’re lucky she thought it was funny.”

“I gave you a job. Just go away, will you?”

“You know, I hear the golf club still has a great restaurant. I should drop by, sometime. Guys there seemed pretty chatty last time I went.”

“Chatty?”

“Very. How’s your husband doing, anyway? Aaron, right?”

She looks uncomfortable but, to her credit, doesn’t respond to his veiled threat, so John tries a different way. “Look, there’s some people who ruin things for others like us. I thought… I thought McKay was my friend, and he…” He takes a deep breath. “I thought he’d be my friend. He really,  _ really  _ fucked me over.”  _ That’s one way to say ‘broke my heart’. _

“McKay did? Wasn’t he the quiet kid that rarely went out with you guys? What’s he done to you?”

“Just trust me. He crossed me and, unfortunately for him, I’ve been known to hold a grudge.”

She laughs. Even she knows about the infamous fight John had had with his father in public over the four wonderful high school years.

~

He tries McKay’s old house first. It’s empty, which isn’t much of a surprise. He calls Dave, thinks maybe Dave would know more about McKay’s post-highschool life. “It’s not like I expected him to be in the first place I looked, but…”

“John, can I ask you a question?”   
  
“What?”

“What if he’s innocent? Will you still bring him in?”

“What’s that got to do with anything? He’s certainly not innocent of skipping bail.”

“But he might have had a good reason. McKay’s an asshole, yes, but I don’t think he’s a  _ murderer…  _ Is this-- Is this because of what happened, with you two?”

“Nothing happened between us two,” John says too quickly, then realizes his mistake, too late.

“I have to admit I didn’t think so either, at the time. Couldn’t make heads or tails of why it would upset you so much that he went to MIT. Even entertained the idea that you were jealous of him, maybe, for the early admission - what was he, sixteen? - but then, when I found out…”

“Not everything in my life’s about being gay, Dave,” John sighs, and puts his forehead on the steering wheel, fighting the urge to hit his head against it repeatedly. Then he hears something, and his hand instinctively goes to his thigh, for a holster that’s not there. Raising his head as slowly as he can muster, he looks up. “Fuck. Think I’ve got him.”

“Wow!”

“I mean… Maybe. Has he lost weight? I’m talking fifty pounds.”

“Oh, yeah. He was at one of our conventions last month, heard it was because he was - and I quote - ‘too important a mind for this world to lose any earlier than necessary’. Charming guy, really. Can see why you fell for him.”

“I didn’t-- Look, I’ve got to go.”

“More likely,” Dave continued, not seeming to care. “He got tired of being called the ‘fat one’ in the lab.”

“Sounds like a great place to work,” John murmurs, opening the car door as quietly as he can.

“Hey, he looks better,” Dave says, and John can hear the shrug, somehow.

“Gotta go.” Finally, he hangs up, not waiting for Dave to say goodbye.

Before John gets a chance to even properly approach McKay, however, he’s hit with - with  _ something  _ \- he doesn’t even know what, and a rippling pain in his chest makes him stop. It’s almost like being tased, but there’s nobody close enough to do it. He’s not proud of it, but he lets himself fall onto his knees. He just needs to rest. Just for a second.  _ What the hell was that? _

He hears McKay walk over, but even if he had the breath he doesn’t know what he’d say.

“What do you want?” McKay snarls. John starts lifting his head up, but McKay hits him with - with whatever that thing is - again, but on a lower setting it seems, because this one doesn’t hurt as much. “I asked you a question.”

“McKay!” he spits out. “Stop doing that.”

“I don’t see why I should stop protecting myself,” McKay starts, then John lifts his head up, consequences be damned, and that makes McKay pause.

“Rodney, come on.”

“Fuck,” McKay says, and it’s so genuine and sudden that John has a feeling he - as usual - let his mouth run ahead of his brain, which is a feat considering McKay’s intellect. “John Sheppard? What the hell?”

“Charming as ever, I see.” He gets up, reasonably convinced that McKay won’t hurt him again. Rubbing his chest doesn’t help the pain, but he does it anyway, instinctively.

“Says the man who ran over my robot with a car.”

“That was an accident. My foot slipped.”

“Accident my ass! You jumped the goddamn curb and ran over it  _ twice!” _

“As I said, charming as always.”

“You know, I heard you moved back east, after your divorce.”

“Yeah? Well, I heard you killed a guy.”

McKay’s face whitens a bit but, to his credit, his voice doesn’t waver when he speaks. “And?” he demands.

_ “And,”  _ John says, taking a slow step towards McKay. “You’re in violation of your bond agreement. I'm gonna need you to come with me.”

McKay seems to mull it over for a few moments. “No thanks.” He chuckles, and starts to walk away.

“What, you think this is funny?”

“Yeah, I do,” McKay says, much calmer than before. “And I gotta tell you, I don’t have much to laugh about these days.”

“Look, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way.”

“Go on, Sheppard,” McKay laughs. “Be  _ more  _ of a cliche’, why don’t you? I’m used to working with useless minions who’ve clearly bought their diplomas on the black market, but I used to think you weren’t stupid.”

“Hey!”

“‘Hey’  _ what? _ You’ve got no gun, no cuffs, no backup. I mean, honestly… Thanks for the laugh, Sheppard.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Yeah,” McKay says, impatiently. “I do. The life sign-- uuuh the metal detector I have on me didn’t detect anything.”

“Look, if you say you didn’t do it, I’ll believe you, but you’ve gotta help me out here,” John says. He’s doing a good job of playing good cop, he thinks.

“I’d eat a lemon before I let you bring me into custody,” McKay says. John’s confused for a moment before remembering that he’s deathly allergic.

“Now who’s being dramatic?”

“First off, if I even make it to jail - you know what happens to men like me in prison? Not pretty!”

John can’t believe how little real life knowledge McKay has even after all these years. He must’ve stayed pretty firmly in his scientific little bubble where feelings and other people don’t exist.

“Number  _ two,  _ you’re the  _ last  _ person I’d let collect the money. You have no respect for hard work, I’d worked on that robot for  _ months,  _ you dick! Of course, within a month I’d developed a much more efficient battery for the next version, but that’s no excuse.”

“I said it was an accident.” John’s eyes dart quickly over exit points of the garage. “I’ll get you, McKay.”

“What, you want to get zapped again?”

“I’ll follow you. I’m a stubborn son of a bitch, you know that. I’ll find you.”

McKay sighs, and his shoulders drop. “Fine. Have it your way. I’ll get my keys, and we’ll go.”

John leans against what’s apparently McKay’s car while McKay searches for the keys in his messenger bag. Then, after looking like he’s found it, McKay turns to him with an odd look on his face. “You always were very handsome,” he says.

John isn’t taken aback because he’s  _ not,  _ but his chest hurts again, just a little, in an entirely different way than a few minutes ago.

“The hair-- Glad you kept it that way. Didn’t get a boring middle-aged cut.” It occurs to John that McKay is  _ very  _ close, and he can almost feel the heat radiating off of him.

“We’re barely thirty, Rodney,” he jokes, but his voice is breathless and  _ fuck, really, John? After all these years? _

“It suits your personality, you know?” McKay continues, getting closer and putting one hand on John’s shoulder. “It’s got all this energy, and not much control. Sexy as hell, really.” And god, McKay’s looking at John the way he  _ used  _ to, sometimes, way back when. Every now and again, when John would manage to catch his attention over the latest physics paper or videogame.

“I don’t think you know much about my personality,” John says, and it’s true. John’s all about control.

“No?”

“Well, I’ll give you the ‘sexy as hell’ part,” John concedes, grinning. “Tactless of you to remind me, though. I might let it get to my head, you know.”

Then McKay leans in, staring at John’s lips, as if he’s going to--

“Aah!” John clutches at his side. The pain is much more concentrated this time, affecting less of his torso, but it’s so sharp that he can’t see anything but white dots covering his vision. “OH COME ON!” he yells as McKay gets into a  _ different  _ car than the one he’d been pretending to own, and John hears him drive away.

“Mother _ fucker!” _

~

“Yeah, he’s annoying, but we knew that already,” Morgan drawls.

“Really?” John says. “I’d completely forgotten.”

“Mmm,” she hums. “Fifty grand, huh? Dead or alive?”

John nods, even though he has no intention of  _ killing  _ McKay.

“Alex would lose it if she knew that you were face to face with him and came up empty. I mean, look at you, and he’s…”

John takes a deep breath, and reminds himself that he’s about to be evicted, and that Rodney McKay’s technically a criminal so this job is really doing the Right Thing. “Any tips?” he forces himself to say. Like it or not, this  _ is  _ unfamiliar territory for him and going in unprepared was a mistake he shouldn’t have done in the first place.

“Ronon,” she says slowly, dragging the word out. “Ronon Dex.” If John had thought before that she was at all attracted to him, the delusion is gone now. The way her eyes go hazy at the man’s name says it all, really.

“Dex,” he repeats the name, as she scribbles down a number and hands him a small piece of paper.

“He likes to be called Runner. Call him in the morning.”

“‘Runner’? What is he, an action figure?”

“Runner Dex, he’s the Lord Guru of bounty hunting. He’s…” She sighs longingly. “No way you won’t recognize him. He’s what Michelangelo would’ve carved if he’d been alive today.”

“Right.”

“Because  _ he’s  _ the ideal man,” she clarifies.

When John meets Dex, he’s rather glad he hadn’t rolled his eyes at Morgan. There’s no two-ways about it, the man is attractive. Air force doesn’t exactly lack athletes, but this man is something else. If John hadn’t already  _ been  _ into guys, he might’ve started considering after seeing Dex.

The one unattractive thing is his plate. Plates, rather. It looks like Dex just ordered “one of everything”. Scrambled eggs, hash browns, sausages, pancakes  _ and  _ a separate plate of french toast, tall glass of orange juice, separate glass of milk, and a bit bowl of fruits. It reminds him of the mess at Basic, except instead of a buffet, it’s one guy’s meal.

“Am I interrupting something?” John says, not bothering to hide his fascination with the way Dex is eating.

“Funny,” Dex says, in a voice that suggest that it’s anything but. “If it’d been  _ me  _ who clocked McKay, I’d be fifty thousand richer right now.” He gives John’s small plate of eggs and bacon a glance. “How’s the bacon?”

“Good,” John says, then eats a whole one quickly. He has the feeling Dex might take it right off his plate.

“The victim, Lanko Radim, wasn’t from here. He was a refugee. But you knew that already, Alex would’ve told you.”

“Right,” John lies. “Isn’t that hard on your stomach?” he asks, watching Dex drink all of his orange juice in one go. Dex just stares at him and moves on to his french toast plate. “How come you’re not going after McKay?” If it’s so easy, after all, why hasn’t Dex pocketed the fifty grand yet?

“None of your business.”

There really isn’t much John can say to that.

“You’re out of your league,” Dex says. John bristles and is about to give a speech to Dex that he wishes he could’ve given every CO who’d ever looked John up and down and said he wasn’t worth it, when Dex continues. “He’s out of most people’s league. You need to respect that. The weapons he has… You got a taste yourself. Do you even know what hit you?”

“Some sort of incapacitator, not sure how he made it long range, but I get the idea.”

“He  _ set  _ it to be that way. Could’ve killed you easily.”

“How do you know?”

“Been at the other end more than once.”

John wants to talk, but is either too disgusted or fascinated by Dex downing his second glass, with the milk running from his mouth all the way to his  _ neck,  _ to say anything.

“Your only chance, Sheppard, is to get a clean shot, first try. If you don’t shoot before he notices you, you’re done. Bad luck, try again next time. And of course, he’ll be harder to track each time.” John digests the information quietly. The next time Dex speaks, his voice is less condescending. “You have a gun?”

“No,” John says, and isn’t that an odd feeling to relive? He’d applied for his civil license just in case, thankfully, but hadn’t bothered to buy a gun. Why would a civilian ever need one, he’d asked himself.

~

The shooting range front office looks almost comically shop-like. John can’t tear his eyes off of some of the guns that must be halloween props, surely? One has red (obviously fake) fingerprints all over it.

“He wants to be a recovery agent,” Dex tells the boy behind the counter, nodding his head towards John.

“Good for him,” the boy says, then gives John a quick look. “Why would a cop want to be a bounty hunter?”

John’s never been mistaken for a  _ cop,  _ before. Feels kind of good, actually. Sometimes he gets ‘stripper’ or ‘ex-athlete’. And many actually guess right: ex-military.

“He’s going after Rodney McKay.”

At this, the boy raises his eyebrows and actually seems interested. He nods, as if this explains everything, then takes out a small handgun. “Smith and Wesson five-shot.”

Dex nods. “Good. It’ll fit in your skinny jeans.”

“Hey,” John complains, but takes the gun anyway. He’s never loved shooting, only ever got as good at it as he’d needed to. And, again, he’s not looking to  _ kill  _ McKay here.

While John’s looking over the small gun, Dex is pawing at a rifle as if it’s prime rib and Dex is a starving man. “Sexy,” Dex informs John, when he catches him staring.

John compares their guns. Inexplicably, he wants a bigger gun too. “Maybe I’d prefer another one,” he says to the boy.

“Take her for a test drive,” the boy advises. “She’s better than she looks.”

Dex puts down some cash, and John almost grabs for it, saying he’ll take that cash instead of the gun. “Let’s go, Sheppard. See if you remember how to shoot.”

~

All in all, John’s pretty pleased with himself. Three out of five shots were in the face, and two - rather deliberately - in the groin. “Three headshots,” he says to Dex, taking his ear muffs off. “Not bad, huh?”

Dex takes a look, first at the headshots, than the groin ones. “Were those the first three or last three? Because I’ve told you, you’ve got  _ one _ shot. Second one won’t land, no matter how well you shoot. The crotch shots will piss him off more than anything else, he’ll have armor on any unexposed skin. He’ll fire back, and kill you. Mach-eh.” John doesn’t know what language the last word’s in, but he gets the gist.

Instead, he looks over at Dex’s paper target. It has two holes eclipsing each other a little, smack dab in the middle of the head. “Sure, it’s a good two, but two out of how many?” There’s no point in being jealous and  _ he’s not,  _ but, well, he’s not completely devoid of pride either.

“Did it ever occur to you,” Dex says, grinning, “That all my rounds went through the same two holes?”

“I don’t think so,” John says, eyebrows furrowed, but he looks at the target again curiously. Could it be?

Dex picks up his gun again and John barely covers his ears before Dex shoots six times in rapid succession. And damn it if they don’t all go straight in the middle. Dex doesn’t say anything, but looks mighty pleased as he grins down at John, who’s trying his best not to look too impressed.

“That was ok, I guess,” John says. Dex laughs, and pats him on the shoulder.

Dave calls almost the second Ronon drives away, and John wonders if his brother’s having him watched. “I was just about to call you,” he says.

“Of course you were,” Dave responds sarcastically. John isn’t really known for keeping in touch.

“I was shooting, just a few minutes ago. Went through about two dozen bullets.”

“What? I thought you said you were working today. Where are you?”

“Sunny’s Shooting Range. Runner’s… Giving me tips.”

“You’re getting shooting lessons? From a guy called  _ ‘Runner’,  _ of all things? What is he, a movie character?”

“I know. But he’s actually been helpful. With the bounty hunter thing, so I can nail McKay.” It takes a few seconds of silence on the other side of the line for John to rethink his phrasing. “Well not  _ nail  _ McKay. You know what I mean.”

“Sure I do.”

John sighs. “I’m trying this bounty hunter thing, alright? I told you. He skipped bail, he’s worth fifty grand. That’s  _ it.”  _ More silence. John knows he’s known as a quiet guy but  _ fuck  _ those people should meet the rest of his family. Compared to them, he’s a regular Chatty Cathy. “What?” he asks, his patience finally running out. His family’s the only people who can do this to him. Well, and Rodney, once upon a time.

“I just can’t tell if this is really about the money, or just an excuse to chase him down. I mean, if what you need is fifty…”

“Okay. I see where this is going. I’m hanging up now. Talk to you later, Dave.”

~

John had thought that  _ family  _ would’ve been a good a place to start as any, to find a person. He’d been wrong.

“I’ve  _ told you,  _ Chopard, I haven’t seen or talked to him in years,” McKay’s mom says angrily. “Can we hang up now?”

John pushes his cellphone against his thigh for a moment to drown out the noise of him cursing, then puts it back by his face. “Mrs. McKay, I understand your reluctance to be cooperative, but you see, he’s missed his court appearance, and--”

“You don’t have kids, do you?”

“Uh, no ma’am, but--”

“Wait till you have a child, and he  _ abandons you,  _ and tell me how you’d react to a man digging up painful memories.” The words themselves sounded reasonable, but her tone really didn’t suggest any actual regret or pain. Mostly it sounded like she wanted to get back to watching the show that was still on full volume in the background.

“How about I give you my number ma’am, and--”

“Never call me again.”

John barely hears the first note of the dial tone before hanging up himself. “That went well,” he tells his empty car.

~

He’s not sure whether or not he’s grateful for having the choices that he does, but John’s not one to turn down an advantage, especially if it’s one that’ll get him one step closer to catching McKay. He pulls up to the police station and takes way too long parking, trying to buy himself a few more minutes. What’s he going to say to her, after all these years? Besides, maybe she doesn’t even like him anymore. Their fling had been fun, but not many people hang on to 2-day long romances, no matter how good the sex.

It doesn’t take long to brush past the creepy officer and sneak past the receptionist, towards Barbara’s office. He doesn’t know  _ why  _ the officer seemed creepy, but he’d just felt off, for the lack of a better word. Maybe it was the rat tail. Anyway, he’s here on a mission.

“Hey, Barbara,” John says lightly, leaning against her office door and giving her a lopsided smile.

When she first looks up from the papers in front of her, Barbara’s eyebrows are furrowed. A second later, she’s laughing. “John! Come on now,  _ ‘Barbara’?  _ That where we left things?”

“Bee,” he says, stilling grinning. “Nice office,” he continues, looking around.

“Oh drop it, John,” she laughs. “We both know you didn’t come here to comment on my office wallpaper.”

“Well,” John drawls, then walks over to sit - almost lay, really - on the armchair in front of her desk. He puts his feet up for good measure, and doesn’t bother to tug his shirt back in when it slips and shows a bit of his hip bone. “You mentioned you might be able to help me. ‘Maybe.’”

“What happened,” she corrects, “was that I received a baffling phone call from an old friend, which I couldn’t make heads or tails of, and I asked him to elaborate. I’d meant with an e-mail, or something.”

John puts his foot on her desk. “Hey!” she objects, “You’ll get my desk dirty.”

“I don’t have mud on my shoes, Bee, relax.” Part of him is dying to put his feet down, but he knows he can’t. He needs to keep the act up. “Now, just relax, and let’s talk.”

“Maybe it would be easier to relax if,...” Her voice drifts off, but he can see her staring at his waist - ah, what do you know, his shirt’s pulled up a bit more and you can see the beginning of his abs. He watches and secretly enjoys her being flustered. It’s flattering, even if he’d never act on it, not anymore. “Maybe it’d be easier to relax if you stopped slouching!” she finishes.

John cuts her some slack - he wants her on his side, after all - and gets up, straightening his shirt. That seems to help and she lets out a small sigh. “Look, you asked me about Rodney McKay, and honestly, you need to stay out of that one.”

“I have a right to that bounty same as anybody else,” John says easily, playing with a decorative puzzle he grabs from Barbara’s desk.

“You don’t even know the case,” she argues.

“I know Rodney McKay. I know the victim - Lanko Radim - was a refugee. I know the bail was half a mil, and Rodney went into hiding the second he could. Of course the poor judge didn’t suspect that the good ol’ scientist was a flight risk.” He snorts. “Doesn’t know McKay as well as I do, clearly. He’s driving a rental under a pseudonym, and could be across state lines by now.”

“Proud of yourself, are you, Detective Sheppard?” she says sarcastically, but her eyes don’t look unimpressed.

“Very,” he grins, tilting his head up from the puzzle a bit, and giving her a look from underneath his eyelashes for good measure. Then he hesitates, but he  _ does _ need information, so decides to take a shot. “I also know he used a weapon that he definitely didn’t get from Sunny’s. Hurts like a mother, and leaves no mark.” His hand wants to reach out to his side, to ghost his fingers over his ribs where it had hurt the most, but he resists the urge. “So. That’s what I’ve got.” He puts the puzzle back.

“You really wanna get him, don’t you?”

“Damn straight I do. He’s skipped bail and I’ll haul his ass to that courtroom, and collect my fifty grand.”

She gives him another considering look, then nods. “Here,” she says, handing over a folder. “Here’s McKay’s statement. Merry Christmas, and you’re welcome.”

He flips through the pages a little, skimming to see a lead-- and there we go. A witness statement, with a mugshot to go with it.  _ Interesting. _ The witness is a very attractive lady, clad in what looks like a swimming suit, and looking grimly at the camera.

“That’s Teyla,” Barbara explains. “At least, that’s the name we know her by. She’s from a - um - an NRM, called Atlantis.”

He goes through his mental rolodex before understanding her words. “Oh. A cult. McKay’s been involved in a cult?” He tries to wrap his mind around it. McKay had always seemed much too self-centered to get involved in a cult, unless they were worshiping  _ him,  _ maybe, but who would worship  _ McKay? _

“No,” she says slowly, looking out the window. “We didn’t realize - Atlantis has always been a tiny and peaceful hippie community, really. They never caused us any trouble. A few times they got involved with the military, but I understand it’s because they were unlucky enough to have built their houses on property the Pentagon was very interested in. All got sorted, though. Until… Until this, really. Radim’s death on their land pretty much put an end to us leaving them be, we’ve pulled a few of them in for questioning. Teyla, the lady you see there, said she actually called McKay herself, for help. And that Radim shot first, that McKay was only protecting himself. But the thing is, she’s not available to corroborate the story anymore. Gone. We can’t find her, and anybody from Atlantis we manage to talk to only says that she’s well, not to worry, but that she’s left.”

John politely doesn’t ask why a peaceful hippie has a mugshot. Instead, his eyes are fixed on the woman’s dark expression in the picture. Then he reads over the concise statement she’d given. “Says there was another man, here. With Radim.” It’s a statement and a question all in one.

“Yeah,” she agrees. “Can’t find him either. We also can’t find any evidence that McKay actually had the sort of gun that Radim was killed with - an automatic weapon he doesn’t have a license for, and he hasn’t taken any training for anything similar at the range.”

“You don’t think he did it,” John says, surprised. Not that he’d expected her to jump to conclusions, but, well, Rodney had never been the sort of person people stood up for, or gave benefit of the doubt. More often than not, they wanted to prove Rodney wrong - at anything - and John’s sure most of the people who’d known him back in high school would’ve jumped at the chance to learn finally that “that asshole” was a criminal going to jail.

She shrugs. “It doesn’t add up. And, well,... He wasn’t exactly a ray of sunshine - and yes, he was confrontational - but physical violence... “ She shakes her head. “I’ve been around long enough to know that in most cases, the crime matches the criminal. This one doesn’t make sense to me. There’s more than one piece that doesn’t make sense, mind.” She smiles sadly. “I also can’t see McKay bravely protecting a random woman.”

“But that’s easier to believe than him being a murderer.”

“It is.”

He takes a deep breath. “Alright. Let me see if I can find this Teyla woman, and we go from there.”

~

John spends two days circling around the Atlantis compound - if it can be called that - but the very few people he sees outside of the fences won’t answer his questions. Won’t even respond to a simple “hello”. They don’t look frightened, they just smile, blink at John, then walk away. He’s a bit curious the first couple of times, wondering if some of them have taken a vow of silence, but by the fourth time it happens he’s frustrated enough to consider intimidating them with his gun. But he has a feeling it wouldn’t work, and doesn’t feel like being humiliated further.

Finally, finally one of them - a young boy, just barely outside their fences - waves back when John says “hi”.

“Hi!” John repeats. “I’m John. What’s your name?”

“Jinto,” the boy says, and John has the odd urge to high five someone.  _ Finally,  _ he thinks.

Then, as always, John’s own mind works against him, and he hesitates. “Your parents OK with you talking to me?”

Jinto looks confused for a moment, then smiles, and looks at the ground. “Yeah, they say you’re OK.”

They  _ what?  _ John thinks. “They do, do they?”

The boy nods. “They were worried at first, but Charin said you were harmless.”

_ Not the word I would use… But ‘Charin’’s a new name. Good. _

“Who’s Charin?”

Jinto looks surprised again, then looks at the ground again shyly. “She’s… She’s Charin.” His eyes dart up to John, then back down again. “Is that… Is that a gun?”

John glances down, and sure enough, his gun is just barely visible from underneath his jacket. “You’re not scared?” he asks, instead of answering.

“No,” Jinto says simply. “Charin said not to worry.” He looks up determinedly. “Can I look at it?”

“That wouldn’t be safe,” John says, voice soft. He doesn’t want to alienate the first Atlantis-person willing to talk to him, but he’s not about to let a kid hold his gun.

“See,” a voice comes from behind them and John just  _ barely  _ manages not to jump, and his hand goes to his nonexistent thigh holster.  _ Your gun is on your belt now, you idiot,  _ he scolds himself.

“Told you he was not dangerous,” the voice continues, and John turns around to see an elderly woman smiling at them. “Go ahead, Jinto. Go home. Almost dinner time.”

Jinto gives John a quick wave, then disappears behind the fences. John has to do something before the lady follows him in. “Hey, ma’am, I, uh--” He’s not sure what to say.

“You are looking for Teyla.”

“Yes,” John breathes out, relieved. “How did you--”

“It is not difficult to - how do you say it? - put two and two together. Teyla sees a murder, law men start asking, a few days later a hired gun asks the same.”

There’s a  _ lot _ to unpack about what she’s saying, but he starts with: “Murder? Not self-defense?”

She looks bemused for a moment. “Oh. I always forget.” She chuckles. “We… Use the word differently. I mean a killing. A man died, here.”

“Where’re you from?”

“Far away,” she says simply, and somehow John knows not to ask further. “Teyla is safe, and telling you where she is would risk that.”

“Yes, but you see, McKay--”

“Doesn’t need your help,” she finishes for him.

“My  _ help?” _

“He is more than capable, do not let the weight on him fool you.”

“I wasn’t trying to--” He pauses, reconsidering. “Can’t hurt to have an extra set of hands - or gun.”

She nods slowly, but doesn’t speak right away. “Young one, I do not know that you  _ can _ help him. You are not…” She pauses. “Perhaps O’Neill could, although I do not know if he is trying.” She looks at the fence, but John doesn’t know what at. All  _ he _ can see is the big fence and shrubbery behind it.

“O’Neill?” he asks, wanting to follow up on this lead from outside the cult.

“I am sorry, I truly cannot help. None of us can. I merely came out to stop you from wasting your time here.” She smiles, then then turns to go inside, her hand on the gate.

He can’t help it, he steps forward towards her, hoping he won’t scare her. “Ma’am, I need to find him, and--”

Before he can finish his sentence, they both gasp and step back because  _ the door is glowing. _

Well, sort of. The handle is. The old lady looks up at him, eyes wide. “You…” she starts, but her voice trails off, as if she’s at a loss for words.

“What’s that?” he asks, reaching towards it because he’s apparently devoid of all self preservation instinct, just like his CO had said, and all he wants to do is to touch the door. It sound stupid even in his own head, but it’s like the door is inviting him in.

She blocks him by putting a gentle but firm hand on his wrist. “Come here tomorrow,” she says. “At… Six? I do not know how fast they could come if they needed to hurry, but they always take more than half a day to arrive.”

“‘They’?” What sort of cult  _ is  _ this, exactly?  _ God, Rodney,  _ he thinks,  _ What have you gotten yourself into? _

She shakes her head. “You will understand tomorrow, I cannot say more.”

~

When he arrives at four to scout the area - even  _ he  _ isn’t stupid enough to walk into a cult’s ambush before at least first taking a sneak peak - there are five SUVs surrounding the gate. There’s a man standing outside the closest one who’s… Yup, that’s a Major General. What on earth is going on?

_ Alright,  _ he thinks to himself.  _ Probably won’t get killed today, at least. _

How odd, that having brass around makes him feel safer. Then again, the alternative is crazed cult followers, so…

Even though he knows there’s little chance of them not having noticed him, he tries to back up and out of the street, but one of the officers - a major - whistles. John doesn’t even have to catch her eyes to know what she wants. He drives slowly towards them, and doesn’t bother parking before getting out. They certainly haven’t. He does his best not to stand up straight, or acknowledge anyone the way he would have, a couple of years ago.

“Hello,” he says, when the major doesn’t say anything to him for a while.

She smiles, as if he’s just said something amazing. “Good afternoon.” She holds out a hand. “Major Carter.”

“Nice to meet you, Major Carter,” he says, taking her hand in for a short handshake. He doesn’t bother with his own name, but Major Carter waits for a few moments for him to offer it.

“Well…  _ John,”  _ she starts, then pauses. “May I call you John, or d’you prefer Sheppard?”

He really wishes they’d get to the point, he doesn’t have time for this political dancing around of his lack of a military title. “Call me John,” he says easily, giving her a buy-me-a-drink smile. “What brings you around here? I think Mcguire is that way.” He points South.

She chuckles. She’s definitely not as uptight as what he’d been expecting from a five-SUV ambush with Generals about. “You, actually,” she says, and her honesty surprises him. Well, that and the fact that they’re here for him in the first place. “Our sources tell us you’re… Uniquely interesting for us.”

Before she can continue further, a Colonel appears behind her. “Let’s go, majors,” he says, in lieu of an introduction, and nods towards the closest SUV.

_ God, Rodney,  _ John thinks once again.  _ I knew you were smart, but what is this? Did you steal weapons programs, or something?  _ He follows them into the SUV, taking the back seat while they take the front ones, although it’s clear they’re not driving anywhere.

“Before we go ahead with the NDAs…” Colonel says, then throws his car keys at John. It glows, just like the handle did, in John’s palm. Except this one isn’t as inviting as the gate’s handle had been, it seems almost uninterested in John, as if John’s not who it’s listening for.

_ Listening for? Where’d you get that from, John? Keychains don’t listen, not with purpose even if it’s a bug…  _ And just like that, he knows what it is. It’s a scanner, but it’s parameters have been set to something entirely different than John.

“Right, well. How’s retirement treating you?”

_ So we’re not addressing the weird glowing scanner in my hand. OK.  _ “As well as one would expect, sir.”

“If Sam here is anything to go by, the toughest part seems to be the lack of flying. Bet you’re not missing those 341s, though.”

_ Great, he’s read enough to know how many COs I’ve pissed off. Maybe I  _ **_will_ ** _ mysteriously disappear today after all. _

John smiles, and forces himself to relax further into the seat. “Most of us join to fly. I flew anything they’d let me.”

“Like…?”

“Apache, Black Hawk, Cobra, Osprey,...”

“A lot of training for Minot supply chopper route.”

_ No, please,  _ John thinks sarcastically,  _ Don’t hold back any punches. _

“I didn’t mind the cold, after the Afghan heat,” he says, unable to keep himself from bristling. Sure, his last post wasn’t the most impressive, but he’d been a damn good airman. Depending on who you asked.

“Oh, I bet. I can  _ just _ imagine being stuck in a desert with no way out.” Major Carter gives the Colonel a look that actually stops him from talking more. It’s the first time it occurs to John that they might be more than two random colleagues who happened to be the ones to approach him.

Major Carter takes a deep breath, then turns back to John. “The object in your hand, it’s coded to a specific gene.” She allows John a moment to attempt to digest coding an electronic device to a  _ gene.  _ “The fact that it, ah, lights up for you, is what got all this.” She makes a circular motion with her right finger, gesturing at the military presence at Atlantis’ gates.

“If it’s coded to a gene like you say, why would it work for me? Is this-- Don’t tell me this is one of Dave’s projects? My brother’s company?”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “That would’ve been simpler to explain! The specific genetic compatibility you possess is very rare, and we can’t tell you any more than that until you sign an NDA.” And suddenly, there’s a stack of papers in John’s hand that’s not carrying the keychain.

“I assume signing is not exactly optional?” John’s question is only met with an apologetic smile from the Major, and a roll of eyes from the Colonel.

~

Aliens. From another  _ galaxy. _ Ancient civilization. Oh, and John just happens to be what they’re calling a ‘gene carrier’. He wouldn’t believe any of it if it hadn’t been for the fact that this elaborate a prank can’t be played even with the amount of money Dave might throw at actors.

Just what he needs, being dragged into covert ops without any of the benefits. He’s expecting them to tell him to move somewhere remote, keep a low profile and never come to this state (where they’ve presumably built up their own version of Area 51) ever again, when the colonel surprises him.

“I’ve already been here longer than I’d like, major - thanks for showing up early, by the way - so I’ll keep this succinct. “

There’s a beat of silence as the colonel stares at him.

“That  _ is  _ succinct,” John can’t help but say. What’s he  _ doing?  _ There’s a goddamn General right outside, talking to - wow, he’s talking to one of the cultists, a man with dark-blond hair. Sort of like Rodney’s, actually.

“Thank you,” the colonel says happily.

Then it dawns on John. They don’t want him to disappear at all. They want him  _ in.  _ This gene thing, it must be even rarer than they made it out to be if they’re desperate for a discharged Air Force major.

“You want me to come to… What? Area 52? 53?” He’s trying his best to sound sarcastic and uninterested but knows he’s failing.

“Something like that,” the colonel confirms.

John’s mouth moves and yes, he’s uttering words but his brain doesn’t seem to be involved with the process. “I’ll think about it,” he hears himself say.

“You’ll… You’ll  _ think  _ about it?” Major Carter asks, incredulous. He doesn’t blame her. When he was still in the AF, he would’ve killed to be part of a mission like this. It’s the sort of mission you only dream about because it can’t possibly be real.

The colonel steps out and talks to the general, and from what John can hear he’s telling a few of the other officers to go. The general, also, takes his leave, and within five minutes, only two military SUVs remain on the street: The one he and Major Carter are in, and another one next to it.

When he slips back into the driver’s seat, the colonel looks casual, as if he’s just taken a short smoke break or something. Nothing in his demeanour suggests impatience or frustration, despite the fact that John  _ knows  _ he’s being an ass. Towards a  _ Colonel. _

“And? So? What is it?”

_ He wants an answer  _ **_now?!_ **

“All due respect, sir, yesterday I didn’t even know that aliens existed. Now apparently an old friend of mine is involved in some sort of Jerseyan Area 51. Then I found out I have some mutant gene. Then there's this Stargate thing, and expeditions to other  _ galaxies,  _ of all things. It’s a lot to take in. I don’t even know what use I’d be.”

“This gene… It can help us. A lot. You know, this isn't about you, Sheppard. It's a lot bigger than that. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t.”

“Right now, at this very second, whether I decide to go down this rabbit hole seems to be about me. You were fine without me yesterday, you’d be fine without me tomorrow. Respectfully, sir, we both know it’s just luck that got me here in this car with you.”

“Let me ask you something. Why d'you become a pilot?” Even Major Carter seems surprised at the colonel’s new angle of attack, and raises her eyebrows at him.

“I think people who don't want to fly are crazy,” John answers honestly.

“And I think people who don't want to go through the Stargate are equally as whacked. Now if you can't give me a yes by the time I’m done with this phone call, I don't even want you.” He promptly dials on his cellphone, and seems to be waiting for his call to be picked up.

“Go through the…” John stares at Major Carter. “You want me to actually be part of the expeditions?”

“O’Neill. No need to connect me, don’t bother with the code. Just confirming departure two hours earlier than accepted. Have a nice day.” He hangs up.

The name sounds familiar, but John can’t quite place it. He’s sure he’s heard of it before… Oh, right, the Charin woman had mentioned him, saying he could help.

“Everybody on the Stargate team, well, works on the expeditions, one way or the other. And with your specific… talents, yes, there’s a particular project we’d put you on that’d require frequent Stargate travel.”

He’s about to ask if he’d be a contractor when he remembers something. Something that he’d managed to forget in the midst of all this but he’s gonna cut himself a break because  _ aliens.  _ “Rodney. Rodney McKay. What does he have to do with all of this?”

“Ah, right, I almost forgot. You’re McKay’s friend,” the colonel says, but gives no further explanation.

“Is he a contractor too? Like me, with the gene?” He thinks of the weird device Rodney’d used on him. It being alien makes a whole lot of sense, now that he knows about all this.

“Yes and no,” Major Carter says. “Yes, he works with the SGC but no, he doesn’t have the gene. He’s one of the physicists.”

The colonel grins at that, although John can’t imagine why. Nobody likes having Rodney around  _ that  _ much. With the exception of John himself, but that’s not the kind of smile the colonel is wearing.

“If your answer depends on whether or not you can work with him, then there’s no point discussing further, because at the moment, you can’t,” Carter says. “Usually our gate teams - the teams that go through the Stargate - they do have at least one scientist so it would follow that Rodney could join one with you in it, but…” She glances at the colonel, looking for guidance, but the colonel doesn’t give her anything but a shrug. “He’s sort of… On the run.”

“From you?”

“I don’t think so,” Major Carter says slowly. “Although I have to admit, I haven’t been able to figure out what from, quite yet. Most of us guess he found something during his research that’s scared him, but I’ve been going over his files and can’t see anything out of the ordinary. He wasn’t working on a new project, and he hadn’t accessed any directories that would’ve been new to him.”

“He was here just a few days ago. Don’t know where he’s now, but… He’s not in some bunker, hiding.” Although, now that he’s said it, he can imagine just that. Maybe Rodney  _ is  _ in a bunker, and was just stocking up on food.

“He killed Lanko Radim,” John says, even though they all know it. It must be more meaningful to them than it’s been to John, though.

“You know,” the colonel says, almost happily, “I still can’t believe that’s his real name. It just sounds so made up, I don’t know why. Never liked the guy.”

“The fact that he’s Genii doesn’t make him likeable,” Major Carter agrees. John holds back on asking who the Genii are. She turns to John for a short explanation anyway. “They were - are, I guess - an enemy. Lanko was meant to be on our side, but the fact that McKay’s killed him suggests that maybe he wasn’t the turncloak we’d thought him to be.”

“Or that he turned one too many times,” John says, and she nods. “And this Teyla person? Another turncloak?”

“First you wanted McKay, now you want Teyla. What do you really want, Major?” the colonel says, and finally looks a little bit exasperated. John’s glad to know that the man is human.

“Teyla, I think,” he says slowly. “She’s the only real lead to McKay. You guys don’t seem to know where he is, but she might.”

“If you’re not going to join, I suggest you drop this because what McKay’s involved in is way beyond something you could take care of on your own.”

“I'm just trying to find McKay, not get into anything…”

“Look, Major, I’ll be honest with you. McKay’s a handful and sometimes - clearly - even we don’t know what do with him. But I’d take him on any day over trying to go against Teyla. If she doesn’t want to be found, you’re not finding her. And even if you want to carry on with this little quest of yours, it’s much easier done with SGC resources than not.”

“You know what, I’m supposed to check in at the station, so I think I’ll just get going.”

Surprisingly, they let him. Major Carter gives him a card without any name on it, and tells him to call whenever - not  _ if  _ \- he changes his mind, or if he happens to spot - not  _ catch  _ \- McKay.

“And, John… I don’t think he knows where Teyla is, but the only other lead I could think of was Ronon, Ronon Dex. He lives outside of the New Atlantis compound which makes him easier to find and talk to, but I’ve already talked to him, and he doesn’t know anything. He’s secretive but not a liar, so I believe him.”

~

Since John has no real way of knowing where Dex is, he goes to the only place he can think of: The gun range. He asks the boy at the counter if he’s seen “Runner Dex” around, but he doesn’t seem willing to share any information.

Just as John’s about to give up and leave, another patron enters. He gives the shop boy a glare, and immediately the boy goes into the drawers, looking for something. Now that he’s given him a good look, John sees that the guy who’s walked in is almost fully covered in tattoos in a language he can’t make out, and the ones on his face are red and green. Definitely not a weekend hobbyist.

On a hunch, he walks towards the man. “I’m looking for Ronon Dex. Well, Rodney McKay, actually, but I understand they’re buddies, and--”

The man glares at him. “Why would I know your friends?”

“Dex comes here often. I figured you might’ve run into him.”

“If you don’t drop this, I’m going to cut you up and nobody will find a single piece.”

“Well, that was uncalled for,” John says, surprised into dropping his casual act.

All of a sudden, there’s a flash of light and  _ god  _ he can’t see  _ anything  _ what the hell’s going on?

There’s shooting and movement around him, but John doesn’t even try to retaliate when he can’t see anything, only lies down on the floor.

After a few very, very long minutes, it’s quiet, and John has at least some of his vision back. He looks around while slowly getting up. He notices that the shop is empty now, except for him and…

“You alright?” Rodney asks nervously.

“McKay?” He wonders if he’s dreaming because of a concussion. He’s certainly been thinking about Rodney a lot lately, about what they used to do…

“I asked if you were okay!” Rodney snaps. And, yes, this must be real because in John’s fantasies Rodney gets snippy with him only if John’s teasing… “What the hell were you doing?”

“Looking for you,” John says, rubbing his temple. He’s gonna feel this for  _ days,  _ isn’t he?

“Yeah, well, congratulations, you’ve found me. Now  _ stop  _ looking for me! You can’t keep rattling my name off at every corner, I’m trying to  _ hide,  _ here!” He turns to leave, now that he’s seen John’s more or less okay, but John stops him by holding on to his arm.

“Knock it off!” he says, trying to shake John’s hand off, but despite Rodney’s fancy alien gadgets, he can’t get out of a good ol’ firm hold. But Rodney’s thoughts seem to echo John’s, and he reaches into his bag with his other arm.

“I don’t think so,” John says, holding his gun up to Rodney’s face. “If you so much as think of taking that stunning thing out, I’ll shoot you,” he says. “And who would blame me?” he continues, trying to hide the fact that he’s bluffing. “You shot an unarmed man, you skipped bail…”

Rodney’s still rummaging in his bag.

“Why are you still moving?” John says with a frown.

“Because you won’t  _ shoot me,  _ Sheppard, we both know that. And I need to get out of here.”

“Think again, McKay,” he says, angry all of a sudden. What’s gotten into people today? Nobody seems to think John’s capable of anything. He turns the safety off.

“I don’t have to,” Rodney says, not even bothering to look up at the clicking sound of the gun. “I know you and I know the look in your face right now is annoyed, but not kill-Rodney annoyed. You were more upset when I refused to blow you that one time than you look now.”

For a split second, John doesn’t know what he’s talking about. How can he remember everything that happened in high school? But then it comes back to him. It’d been the week before prom, and Rodney had indeed refused a blowjob - to receive it, actually - in favor of an hour in the chemistry lab. But that hadn’t been the issue. The issue had been that Rodney had gone and  _ laughed  _ when John had asked whether or not he should pick Rodney up on the way to prom the next day. John can still remember the amusement in Rodney’s voice as he’d said ‘I’m not going’.

“And besides, I haven’t even provoked you,” Rodney says, finally finding whatever he’d been looking for, and looking up at John.

“As far as you’re concerned, McKay, I’m in a constant state of provocation.” And that might’ve been the most honest thing he’s said all day.

“Alright,” Rodney concedes, rolling his eyes. “Correction. I haven’t provoked you  _ recently,  _ have I?”

Neither of them move, and John doesn’t lower the gun.

“Oh, come on!” Rodney moans. “Would you please not shoot me? Just lower the gun.”

“Will you come into custody, then?” John says, because he can’t think of what else to ask of Rodney. ‘Sit down and explain what the fuck kind of alien shit you’ve gotten yourself into’?

“No.”

“Funny, I don’t remember you being stupid,” John says, nodding towards his gun.

“Come on, you owe me.”

“I  _ owe  _ you, McKay? How d’you figure  _ that?” _

“I saved your ass!”

“Saved my ass? I was fine. Until your little light thing went off, I had it handled.” Rodney’s chagrined look proves John’s theory that that had been another alien device.

“That guy’s Trust, I don’t even know why he was here. You don’t…” Rodney pauses, sighing. “You don’t know how fast you would’ve ended up dead. The reason he can commit as many crimes as he has been is because there’s never anybody left to point fingers. Or even a  _ finger _ left behind, at that. So, yes, I  _ did  _ save your ass, Sheppard. Live with it.”

“Is he who you were running from?”

A flash of something other than frustration crosses across Rodney’s face - fear? - but then it’s gone before John can make it out. Rodney always had been so easy to read, but apparently right now he’s battling too many emotions for John to pinpoint what’s going on.

“Come on, you’ve gotta give me  _ something,  _ Rodney.”

“You-- Are you propositioning me?  _ Now?”  _ Rodney asks, taken aback as if  _ John  _ had brought up sex.

“Give me something I can use I mean, asshole.” John immediately regrets his wording, but Rodney’s look shows that he’s understood what John had meant.

“Alright, I’ll let you ask me  _ one  _ thing,” Rodney says, expression determined.

A hundred questions buzz through John’s brain.

“Hurry up,” Rodney scoffs. “Man on the run here? Mortal danger?”

“Who’s Teyla?”

Rodney seems to consider how to answer this, and John decides to help him out. “I know about… I know about Stargate. About… the aliens and the snakes and Atlantis.” It’s mostly true, he gets the gist of what the Atlantis compound is. Rodney, expectedly, looks floored. “I’ve been given clearance. Contractor.”

“Teyla’s Athosian.”

“And?” John asks, trying to pretend he understands what an Athosian is. Is that a code for a team? A planet?

“And she was in danger. She… We found something out that we weren’t meant to.” He frowns. “People always seem to think I’m not a worthy target, and go after her instead. I get that I might not have her  _ assets,  _ but you would think my superior intellect--”

“There a point to this, McKay? So you protected her, then what?”

“I’ve been trying to find her. I was convinced she’d meet up with Ronon, and that’s why I was watching this place. Until you came along and blew it.”

“I think  _ you  _ blew it up, McKay,” John says, looking around them, at the half-destroyed store. He doesn’t know why, but he decides to push the bomb thing further. “And that sweatshirt makes you look like the Unabomber. Apt, I guess.”

“What can I say?” Rodney sighs. “I’m a wanted man. Can’t wear Hawaiian shirts and shorts.”

John ignores the dig at his brief period into Hawaiian shirts in freshman year.

“So… I gave you a question,” Rodney asks, as they’re walking out of the store. “How come you didn’t ask if I was innocent?”

“Juries decide people’s innocence, McKay. I’m just here to collect. The bounty on you is pretty decent.”

“You’re going to let me get into my car? Alone?” Rodney asks, still holding on to whatever is in his bag. John’s not stupid enough to get stunned again.

“This time,” John says. “I don’t need a ride anyway,” he says, nodding towards the Lexus on the right.

“Oh. Ah. You might find that it… You might have some issues starting it,” Rodney says quickly, and rushes over to get into his car.

_ God dammit. _

“Rodney?” he calls out. “Am I gonna die if I turn on the ignition?”

“No!” Rodney yells back, then gets in his car and drives away.

“God dammit,” John says, this time out loud, and opens his hood to see what on earth Rodney might’ve done to Dave’s poor car.

~

By Tuesday, the trail has gone cold to the point where John would’ve given up if it hadn’t been Rodney. If a USAF Colonel isn’t able to solve whatever problem Rodney’s in, John definitely can’t leave him to his own devices.

He wonders how to get himself back into the mess he’d opted out of last week when Major Carter had handed him an NDA about aliens as easily as if it was a take-out menu. He hadn’t wanted to get involved then, but now it seems inevitable, if he wants to find Rodney.

And get the bounty. Of course. He needs the money, that’s the whole point of all this. Despite what his gut tells him to do, it just isn’t reasonable to think that he’d protect Rodney better than the Air Force would. He’ll just find Rodney for them, collect the bounty, let them pick Rodney up from the station. Take him away to wherever. It’ll be fine.

Except life has other plans for John, as it often does. When he comes to his shabby apartment, the door is wide open, and Major Carter’s standing in the middle of his living room.

“Um. Hello, major. Nice of you to visit.”

Major Carter shakes her head. “Wish it were under more pleasant circumstances. You shouldn’t get back here, not until you’ve been cleared. Obviously you’ve made it onto their suspect list, somehow.” She gives him a look. “Haven’t been keeping Rodney here, have you?”

“The second I get him, ma’am, he’s going to the station.”

“Right,” she says, nodding. She doesn’t sound surprised. “Not that I thought anywhere devoid of garbage and more than three laptops could be harboring McKay, but you never know…” She isn’t mean or anything, but it’s not difficult to hear the less-than-loving tone.

“Don’t like him much, do you?”

“Not many people do,” Major Carter says with a shrug. “I don’t mind him, actually. He’s rather childish, but then again, so’s Dan, in a different way.” She turns to face John fully, and looks at him solemnly. “And I know he… He has a habit of rubbing people the wrong way. And staring at my breasts blatantly. That doesn’t mean we’re not trying to find him, I promise.”

“Most people wouldn’t, if I remember my, ah, old friend right. Sure nobody in the SGC thinks ‘good riddance’?” A theory starts forming in his mind. Maybe Rodney pissed off somebody  _ in  _ the SGC. Would explain why he’s not asking them for help.

“No,” she says simply. “He’s saved lives too many times. Even people who hate him breathe easier when he’s around.”

_ Saved lives?  _ John thinks. Surely they wouldn’t send Rodney to a warzone, would they? And even if they got ambushed in friendly territory or something, how would Rodney of all people save lives? He feels a wave of affection for Rodney, even if he doesn’t know what he’s done to earn it. Major Carter certainly seems to think he deserves the credit.

“I’m not going to lie, John, it… It’s not good that your place has already been found.”

“I wasn’t trying to hide. I’m not on the run. I’m a recovery agent, in fact. The opposite. I  _ catch _ people on the run.” Nevermind the fact that he hasn’t caught his first target yet.

She nods thoughtfully again, and smiles. He hates her a little for her easy-going attitude. Because he knows that attitude. That’s the way you talk when things are so bad, so dire, that you have to move past the emotions.

“I’ll steer clear, for a while,” he says. “But I still have to get my mail.” He tries not to think about how many bills he has overdue. He likes to pretend he doesn’t know each one down to the cent. He does still need the papers though, because for some reason penalties and the fee percentages are never the same.

“That’s a good idea. I’d be careful about the mail. I’d say to send somebody else, but that might be worse. Just be careful.”

She takes her leave, and John’s about to curse every deity he knows about as he packs a duffel bag, but he’s pleasantly surprised to hear a familiar tone.

“Running somewhere, Sheppard?” It’s Dex.

“Dex!” he says, his lips curling into an involuntary smile. “I couldn’t find you anywhere.” He gestures at the bag. “I need to leave the apartment, for a bit. As you can see it’s a bit messy now. I’ll give the maids a few days to clean up.”

Dex lets out a huff from his nose, looking around. “It’s good. That they came here,” Dex says. “Means they’re getting riled up, banging on every door they can find. That’s when people get sloppy, and you get them.”

“Easy for you to say,” John says, getting up and throwing the bag over his shoulder. He thinks about how menacing the guy at the gun range shop had looked. “You probably know the Vulcan grip or something. I just have a lousy gun.”

Dex gives him a weird look, but doesn’t say anything until they’re outside, when he informs John that he knows where Rodney’s apartment is.

~

“How does one go about learning lockpicking anyway?” John asks. He’s been leaning on the wall outside of Rodney’s apartment, watching Dex for the last couple of minutes. For such a big guy, Dex seems to have very delicate fingers.

Not that John’s thinking about them doing anything inappropriate.

“On the job,” Dex says, and doesn’t elaborate.

John imagines that on his first go, Dex had spent hours on a simple indoor lock. The thought makes him smile, even though he doubts it’s true. Dex seems like the guy who learns anything he wants to with alarming ease.

“There.” Dex steps away from the now-unlocked door. “Look for anything that seems unusual for him to have. Women’s clothing, left behind laptops or books, things like that. My guess is that it’s been picked clean, but you never know.”

“You’re not coming in?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Someone has to keep watch.”

Stepping inside, John has no trouble that Rodney’s lived there.  _ Lives  _ there. Everything from the mismatched, framed posters to the giant TV just screams Rodney McKay. Especially the big pile of what looks like scientific magazines with a giant red marker on top. He bets Rodney spends afternoons correcting published professors.

It’s easy to imagine him sitting on the couch, doing just that. Or going into the small kitchen to make himself a small snack. He’s always needed food throughout the day. The bathroom, unsurprisingly, holds no clues, but John lingers for a little anyway. It’s also easy to imagine Rodney here, brushing his teeth, drying off after a shower. Having a shower…

Just as he’s about to leave, he notices Rodney’s car keys are by the door. Makes sense, he wouldn’t use his own car to go on the run. He grabs them.

“Nothing,” he says as he steps out of the apartment.

“Damn,” Dex says, frowning. At least John  _ thinks  _ it’s a disappointed frown, Dex might also just be glowering. Hard to tell with him.

As they’re get back to the parking lot, Dave’s car - he’s been generous enough to let John grab his (cliche’) red sports car this time - sticks out like a sore thumb. Dex grumbles “You’ll have trouble blending in. Once you’re seen in that thing, you’re seen.”

“I know,” John says easily, then holds up Rodney’s keys. “That’s why we’ll take…” He taps on the unlock button and looks around to find out which car’s Rodney’s. “Lexus, I guess.” John can’t believe his bad luck. It’s literally the same car Dave had given him earlier, just in blue. Not that he’d expected a Lamborghini or anything, but...

“Didn’t see a thing,” Dex says, and starts walking away. John’s about to offer him Dave’s car to drive back to Jersey, but he decides against it. Doesn’t matter if he trusts this man; he has no  _ reason  _ to trust him, and he can’t gamble Dave’s possessions on it.

Realizing in his hurry to leave with Dex he’d never checked his mail, John backtracks. He still can’t believe he’s driving this thing. He’ll also need to explain things to Dave if he needs the car back sooner than planned.

There’re a few mails he can just ignore, but one stands out. “Eviction notice”.

_ Fuck. Fuck.  _ He really doesn’t need to be homeless right now, and he certainly doesn’t have any money for downpayment on a new apartment. Easier to find something to pay his current landlord enough to let him stay.

~

“Turns out you were right,” he tells Alex, and gives her the most charming grin he can manage. “It’s gonna take a little longer to get McKay than I’d calculated. But I need to bring  _ someone  _ in. Got anyone for me?”

“Let’s see… There’s Clarence Sampson. Stole a police cruiser during a bender. Take a tour of the bars on Stark, I’m sure he’s in one of them right now. Easy money.”

“There’re like a thousand bars on Stark. I need  _ fast _ money, not  _ easy  _ money.”

“Well it’s not like money comes knocking on your door!” she laughs. Then she pauses as if she’s just remembered something. “Actually, this one might. If you live where I remember you said… I think he’s your neighbor. Barbie Earling, exhibitionist.” She hands him a folder. “She got kicked out of two retirement homes for flashing people.”

“Yeah, Mrs. Earling. Didn’t know she was…” He doesn’t know how to finish that sentence. He’s only ever briefly seen her and, come to think of it, she’d been in a robe both times, paying for food delivery. He flips open the folder and there she is, in all her naked glory. “Oh. Okay, that… That’s bold.”

Alex smiles. If John didn’t know any better, he’d think she was enjoying making John go after a naked old lady.

“Thank you,” he says. “Got this one.”

It doesn’t take long to get Mrs. Earling, but it is literally impossible to convince her to put on any semblance of clothing. She insists that she was born and will die naked, and doesn’t see the point of hiding herself.

They end up getting in Rodney’s car and John purposefully doesn’t lay down a towel or anything on the passenger seat. Let Rodney suffer a little for avoiding John. John doesn’t hold grudges from his teenage years, no, but Rodney sure has been giving him trouble this last few week.

They’re a few blocks from the station when he calls them. “Dispatch, please. I got an FTA here, and I’m requesting aid with the transfer of custody. Thank you.” He turns to Mrs. Earling. “I’m not too sure what’ll happen now, Mrs. Earling. Maybe just a new court date, maybe a fine. Sorry about that.”

There’s no other word for it, she  _ leers  _ at him.

“Not  _ that _ sorry!” he says, looking back at the road. “Jesus.”

Thankfully the car behind them starts honking so he doesn’t have to think about whether or not Mrs. Earling might be making sure Rodney’s car needs a deep clean. “What?” he mumbles. “Light’s still red. What’re you beeping at?”

That’s when he sees a man getting out of the car behind him, and stomping towards him. The man knocks on John’s window with his cellphone. “You have to take this,” he says, and John’s flabbergasted, and just stares at the man. “You don’t understand, you have to take this!” the man repeats. “He said he’ll kill me if I don’t give you my phone!”

John looks at the traffic light, willing it to turn. He really needs to put a quota on amount of crazy allowed in a day in the life of John Sheppard. Somehow, he still manages to end up with the strange man’s cell phone in his hand, catching it by instinct when it gets thrown at him.

“THIS IS MY CAR!” Rodney’s voice comes booming through the phone, and he’s as loud as John remembers because the whole damn car seems to vibrate.

“Then go call the cops!” John says, with the kind of drawl Rodney used to snap at him for.

“That is  _ my car!  _ Dammit Sheppard!”

“Mine for a bit longer, McKay. Unless you want to join us?” He looks around. “You must be closeby, to be threatening innocent strangers.”

“Oh my god, is that woman naked?” Rodney all but shrieks. “She better be wearing underwear. You better be wearing underwear, ma’am!” John wants to make a comment about how Rodney’s not on speaker phone but honestly, he might as well be. Mrs. Earling has no trouble hearing him.

“Oh lighten up, son,” Mrs. Earling says and it’s all John can do not to laugh hysterically. What sort of a situation are they in, honestly?

The light turns.

“If you could just meet me in here in twenty minutes, Rodney, it would make my life a whole lot easier.”

“I will do no such thing! Get out of this car right now!”

“I gotta go,” John says, voice getting louder as he hands the cell phone back to its owner. “Was great hearing from you!”

~

“Take this to his bondsman. He'll cut you a check,” the officer says, not unkindly.

_ I was hoping for cash, but this'll do,  _ John thinks. Maybe he can still catch Rodney, or maybe it’s not worth even trying and he should head straight to the bondsman. He’s not sure.

“Hey, Shep, you can't get McKay naked, so you're settling for her?” one of the officers filing Mrs. Earling in yells out at John.

Before John can say anything, Mrs. Earling gives the best response of all: “This ain't no booby prize, pal. I’m the real thing. He should be so lucky!”

“See you later, Mrs. Earling,” John says with a grin, and heads back to Rodney’s car.

Sure, he’s had to see way more of Mrs. Earling than he would’ve liked, but at least it was gonna buy him a meal that didn't come in a Lunchables box.

Of course Rodney was nowhere near where he’d seen him last, and the mystery car he’d been riding was gone with him. At least John finally had Dex’s number, so he gave him a call to meet up. Might as well share his non-Lunchables meal with someone.

Dex laughs over the table at the diner when he hears about John’s naked old lady adventure, but his good mood doesn’t last long.

“You know it's gonna be a lot harder to get to McKay though, right? He’s hiding from the Genii as well as us. He’s a sharp one, was always good at finding hidden clues. Probably a better hider.” He takes what, to John, seems like an impossible amount to chew in one big bite, and is talking again in less than ten seconds. And he’d thought Rodney was a fast eater. “What is it with you two, anyway?” Dex asks.

_ Where would you even begin? D’you have a few hours to spare? _

A waitress comes by to fill up Dex’s water glass.

“Nothing,” John says carefully. “He… We had a fight in high school, I guess. Ancient history.”

“Honey,” the waitress says unexpectedly. “Half of Jersey’s had a fight with that man. Some restaurants refuse to serve him. Why’re you even talking about him? I thought he’d moved away?”

Dex straightens up, and John can almost hear his muscles tense up.

And just like that, John remembers that they’re in the middle of something they really shouldn’t be talking about in diners. They leave some money on the table and swiftly make their way out.

“He might come back for his car,” Dex muses. “Never did like sharing. Once threatened to poison me because I took one of his pudding cups.”

_ Pudding cups? _

“I’m counting on it,” John says, instead of asking what Dex’s talking about. “Good a way as any to meet up with him.”

~

Dave, somehow, manages to not get angry at the sight of John arriving to his home  _ not  _ in Dave’s red Ferrari.

“You should come home for dinner, next time. Kids already already in bed.”

“Probably see them at breakfast,” John says, a little unsure.

“Will you really stay a whole week?” Dave asks as they walk inside and John gets lead into a spacious guest room.

“Looks like it,” John says noncommittally, but makes a point of taking his things out of his duffle bag in front of Dave.

After a few awkward moments, Dave tries to make conversation again. “You’re still chasing after McKay, right?”

“This time, I have a feeling he’ll come to me,” John says, unable to stop grinning.

“You might have to wait a long time,” Dave says, and even his sarcasm isn’t enough to burst John’s bubble.

“It’ll be soon enough,” he says with conviction, taking his shoes off. “Goodnight, Dave.”

“Goodnight, John.”

~

But of course, things would’ve been too straightforward if Rodney’d just out and come himself to get his car. No, no. Of course Rodney doesn’t do that. He sends a  _ grunt.  _ Around three AM, John wakes up to the sound of banging and breaking glass. He throws on a pair of jeans, secure in the knowledge that the guy will get nowhere, and slowly walks out.

He’s about to yell out to the poor guy to stop his futile attempt at taking Rodney’s car, when a fucking  _ drone  _ appears in front of him. “I WANT MY CAR” is the cheerful note attached to it.

“Yeah, I got that,” he murmurs at the drone, and gestures towards the car, in case the drone has a camera and Rodney can see him.

It appears that he can, because the drone turns towards where the car is. John doesn’t have a chance to get even a brief look at the guy, because as soon as the drone flies towards him, the man notices that he’s caught, and runs off. So much for getting another lead on Rodney.

Rodney’s drone doesn’t bother following him, either. Instead, it turns towards John again, and starts speaking. _ Speaking. _

“I know what you did. The master fuse. Very clever, Sheppard. Give me back my car. In one piece.”

_ If he could talk all this time, why even bother with the silly note?  _ John wonders.

“Fix it, then park it in front of the address stuck to the underside of--”

“Take that address and stick it up  _ your  _ underside--”

“Stop being difficult, Sheppard!” Rodney’s voice sounds irritated, and John can almost see the drone imitate Rodney’s nodding, the gesture he used to do when  _ disagreeing  _ with people, the one that often went along with an almost-popping vein on his forehead.

But then the drone stops nodding. It stops…  _ Is the camera pointed at--? _

“Are you staring at my  _ chest,  _ McKay?”

“I--Cer--Of course not! I can’t even-- The resolution isn’t even-- No!”

“You want your car, Rodney?” he says, saccharine sweet. “Or something else you need help with? You clearly know how to find me.”

“Why did you even take my car?”

“To draw you out. And it worked. Gotta say, even though it was my plan, I’m almost surprised it worked. Never took you for a  _ car  _ man. If I’d had to guess, I would’ve guessed you’d never even gotten a license. What, you wanted to be more like Batman?”

“Oh that’s real nice, Sheppard. I’m just  _ dying  _ to go to the station quietly now, letting you grab my bounty and, consequently, get me brutally murdered. You’ve convinced me. Stellar argument.”

“It really would be just easier to  _ talk to me,  _ Rodney. In person.”

The drone stays quiet.

“Look, Rodney, I already know about the SGC. Why can’t you just tell me why you’re really running? If it was just false charges, why wouldn’t you go to  _ them  _ to help you?”

The drone flies away and John wonders if he could run fast enough to go grab his gun and shoot it. Probably not.

~

Next day, John tries his luck again around Atlantis. The SUVs are gone of course, but he doesn’t see anybody leave the compound for a couple of hours. He’s very tempted to go up and try to open the gate. The fact that it lit up… He thinks it means this mutation he has will make the door work for him.

It’s not even that he has a moral stance against breaking and entering; that’s exactly what he did to Rodney’s apartment. But the people of Atlantis seem more sacred, a people to be respected, although he can’t imagine why he feels that way about a cult, he does. Before he can question his sanity too much, a woman - probably on patrol - passes by the gate.

“Hey!” he yells out. “Hey, d’you have a second?”

The woman doesn’t look startled, but she blinks slowly at him, as if she can’t understand him. Her outfit looks a lot like the Teyla woman’s, actually, a lot of leather and unfinished fabric.

“I’m looking for Teyla,” he tries, walking as slowly as he can towards the gate. He doesn’t want to set off the handle and scare her off.

“I do not know,” she says quietly.

_ Better than ‘fuck off’,  _ John thinks, grateful. “Can you think of where she might’ve run? I don’t want to harm her, I just want to know more about the third man she saw, when Radim and McKay were there.”

The woman considers this for a few moments, looking at the ground. “I know of one who might help you.”

“Can you please take me to them? Or bring them here?” He tries for casual, but his heart’s about the beat out of his chest. Finally, finally he’s getting somewhere. If he can find the second witness, he won’t even have to find Teyla, he’ll just prove Rodney’s innocence, convince him to meet up with John, get both the money and--

John doesn’t let his thoughts trail too far.

She disappears so quickly that John almost wonders if he’d dreamt her. A few minutes later, she’s back with a kid, maybe eighteen. The kid has the sort of grin that you’d have if you--

The teen giggles.

_ Oh great, he’s drunk. This’ll be fun. _

“I was just around the corner,” the kid starts immediately, not waiting to be questioned. John can only assume the woman has instructed him. “I have a bottle of beer, and ice - from a  _ machine  _ \- and and I’m meeting my friends…” He pauses, frowning. “Wait, was Tarek-- No, no he wasn’t there.”

“You were going to meet your friends, but then you saw something…?” John suggests, trying to move things along. He doesn’t need to know this kid’s whole night down to the Taco Bell trip.

“Bam! It was a gun!” He makes a whooshing sound, and motions of an explosion with his hands, and as John bites back the urge to tell him that’s not how a gunshot works exactly, he wonders if this is what Rodney feels like  _ all the time.  _ For a split second, he considers cutting him some slack, but then remembers that Rodney McKay’s an asshole.

“And you saw the shooter?”

“Yeah! Dr. McKay!”

_ The kid knows his title too? Trust Rodney to not only join a government sanctioned secret cult, but also ensure that the followers refer to him by his title still. Aren’t cults supposed to brainwash you? _

“You saw Rodney McKay.”

“Yeah… Yeah! And then he was standing there, holding a gun with both hands. He wasn’t holding it the way Ronon taught us. And then the  _ other  _ man, the flat-nose--”

“The flat nose?”

“Yeah, the flat-nose man! He was fast, like a, like a--- Leopard?” He actually looked at John for guidance, as if he could see what the kid was imagining. “Is that what you call them?”

“Sure, buddy.”

“Then the sirens started, and he ran.”

“Alright. One more question. The dead guy. He had a gun?”

“No.”

“Okay, one more question.”

The kid giggled again. “You already said!”

“I know, buddy. Last one. Did you see Teyla that night?”

“No, Teyla wasn’t there.”

That answer starts a whole different thread of thought - with its own questions - in John’s mind, but he knows the kid can’t help him further. “Thank you,” he tells him, then turns to the woman. “And you.”

~

John’s in the middle of a wonderful dream that involves sliding into Rodney’s beautiful ass when his phone rings. Half-awake, he answers the call without looking at the caller ID.

“Hey.”

The voice on the other side of the line startles John into full awakeness. He glances at the clock on the bedside table. 3 AM. “Uh, hey,” he mumbles, trying to wake up.

“You talk to somebody in New Atlantis yesterday?”

It’s odd how they keep saying that, as if there’d been an old Atlantis and the cult had up and moved to a new city afterwards.

“Yeah, this kid. He was a witness.”

“He’s dead now.”

“What?”

“Heard it on the scanner. Found dead two miles from the compound.”

John’s definitely awake now, sitting on the side of Dave’s guest bed, running a hand through his hair. This can’t be related to him having talked to the kid, right?  _ Right? _

“H… How?”

“Fell from a window. Fourth floor of a motel.”

“Maybe it was an accident,” John says, in the voice he used to negotiate, but he knows it hadn’t been. Why even bother trying to convince himself or Dex otherwise?

“Absolutely not. Somebody killed him.”

“You think it’s because he spoke to me?”

“I’d lay low, Sheppard,” Dex says, and John wishes the ground would swallow him whole, and wants to go out there and punch the guy at the same time. On one hand, he’s obviously royally fucked up, but on the other hand, he can’t take being told to stay out of the way for the adults to fix problems he’s made worse.

They hang up, and John goes to take a piss and wash his face. No point pretending he’ll fall back asleep now. He lays out the clues he’s gathered so far, a map with marks everywhere he’d seen Rodney or a lead, newspaper clippings (one of which he’d told himself he’d keep even after he’d saved Rodney, that said “Crazed Scientist On The Run”), Rodney’s car keys, the witness statements,... It seemed like he had a lot of information, he knew even real detectives didn’t always have this many leads, nor the man on the run personally talking to them through a drone, but…

It just didn’t add up. None of it did. He tried to go over things in sequence, again, staring at the desk.

Rodney joins a cult that’s supported by the SGC, that has alien artifacts, most likely meaning that the cult formed around alien or ancient artifacts, maybe leftover from a Roswell style incident.

Rodney makes friends - friends! - with at least two people in the cult: Teyla and Dex. The way Dex talked about Rodney made it seem like he was more than a colleague, and would also explain why Dex was helping John at all.

The SGC, for some reason, allows this to continue. Presumably, since he’s their contractor, Rodney’s studying the artifacts the cult has. Although why the USAF would even allow them to keep the artifacts is a mystery to John.

Rodney and Teyla uncover something - nobody knows what, but it’s clear that they dug something out that made them a target to  _ someone. _

Rodney kills an alien - well, a human from another planet, a refugee - in self-defense. There’s only one real witness, although Teyla gives a statement about the self-defense part too.

They both disappear, although Teyla does a better job of it. Either that, or she’s dead, but John hopes that’s not the case.

Rodney continues to resurface, and even if he were controlling the drone from a far away location - lord knows if anybody can hack a drone to work across state lines it would be Rodney - he still keeps in contact with New Jersey.

The military seem very interested in John due to his gene, but have little interest in finding Rodney, no matter what Major Carter had said. If the Air Force wants someone found - someone who isn’t even doing  _ that  _ good a job of laying low - they would. They’ve got the manpower, both digitally and to do old-fashioned patrols. No, they’re not in a hurry to find Rodney.

Assuming what Carter says about their feelings for Rodney was true, that means that either Rodney’s not in any real danger so they’re not concerned, or that the danger is so big that they’re worried  _ finding  _ Rodney will exasperate it.

John talks to the witness. Witness dies the next day.

All John can think of is that whatever Rodney found is within the SGC, or Atlantis. It has to be, for them to have known about - and killed - the kid so fast. And that’s also the only explanation for why he wouldn’t go to them for help, nor them to him.

But  _ what  _ within the SGC? A coup attempt? Then he could’ve just taken a side, and gotten protected.

A single, or a handful of traitors? Again, why not go to someone in the Air Force for help? Or, hell, John. John could hide him.

No, no… Rodney seems to be on some sort of mission, and hiding or running is just a side effect, not the main goal.

He sighs, and gets up to put on his running shorts. Not like he’s getting anywhere, might as well go for a run, enjoy the dawn outside.

He has every intention to take a quick lap around the block and be back by breakfast, but instead finds himself outside of the police station an hour later. 

“You’ve gotta put some guys around Atlantis. I never even see a traffic cop within miles of that place. Two people have died already.”

Barbara blinks at him over her croissant, giving him a look as if he’s speaking another language.

“You want me to protect Atlantis?” To her credit, he doesn’t ask about why John’s half-naked and sweating in her office.

John has the sudden urge to punch a wall like some sort of testosterone-filled cliche’ from a movie. “I want you to care more about people dying in your jurisdiction.”

“You know, Sheppard, you were much nicer a couple of weeks ago…” She stretches her neck as if what he’s saying is child’s play, as if two people - one of them a  _ kid  _ \- haven’t been killed. His anger must’ve shown on his face, because she continues before he has a chance to yell. 

“We don’t know that the second was murder. He was drunk, he’s been caught several times outside of the compound for public intoxication. He fell.”

  
“You can’t possibly buy that.” He can’t believe she doesn’t want to do anything to protect the people living in the compound, to protect  _ Rodney. _

“Look, even if I didn’t, it’s  _ not  _ my jurisdiction, alright?”

“They’re barely, what, forty miles from here? Whose jurisdiction  _ would  _ they be in?”

“Your old friends,” she says, taking another bite of her croissant, and chewing thoughtfully. “The USAF,” she explains once she’s swallowed.

“The USAF?”

“They have, ah, a special interest, like I’d mentioned before. They have this deal with the cult, I told you already the Pentagon was interested in their property. USAF protection comes with whatever deal they’ve made. If I so much as point a scanner their way I get a polite email telling me to - excuse my French - fuck off.”

John considers this. It would make sense, except it would also mean that the Air Force is doing a horrendous job of protecting their turf, which he finds hard to believe.

Well, only one way to find out.

“Thanks, Bee,” he sighs, his anger at her dissipating in an instant. “I know who to call, at least.”

She rolls her eyes and smiles, not taking him seriously.

~

In the end, his phone call with Major Carter is fantastically anticlimactic. She tells him she knew about the kid, that they’d put a few officers - a team, she’d called them - in the compound. Asks him about New Jersey weather, saying she’s stuck “in the mountain”, and they hang up.

He walks towards Dave’s house, not that he has much of a choice. He has no money on him, of course. Even the streets are calm, most commuters are not out on the streets yet.

All the pent up anger he still has, has nowhere to go.

Except, thankfully, Rodney - as always - is there to take it, figuratively speaking. He’s always been an amazing target for any sort of anger, and does a brilliant job of taking it. When they’d been young, sometimes they’d get into fights about things that had nothing at all to do with Rodney. Maybe John had had a fight with his dad, maybe he’d scored low on an exam, whatever the case might be, he’d pick a fight with Rodney, and Rodney would go with it. They’d argue, maybe have an angry orgasm or two, and then it’d be alright. Rodney would never hold it against him later.

Or at least he’d thought so, until Rodney’d left, deciding that John wasn’t even worth considering to keep around. A few weeks after Rodney’d gone, John’d wondered if his anger issues had been part of it. Maybe Rodney hadn’t wanted to be arguing weekly with his partner.

After he’d joined the Air Force, and had let some more of the steam off that hadn’t died off with puberty, he’d wondered if he should find Rodney again. Explain to him that John was fine, that it’d been just a kid not knowing how to handle hormones and family issues. That he’d be calm now, if…

Anyway, it’s stupid to dwell on the past any more than he already is. He has to stay focused, make sure Rodney doesn’t  _ die,  _ first, before making plans for him.

When he arrives at Dave’s, somebody’s already in the kitchen, he can hear the pots and boiling water, but he figures he has time for a quick shower. The guest room - of course - has an ensuite so he doesn’t need to bother with a towel, or carrying clothes. He gets out and gives his head a cursory towel-dry shake before stepping back into the bedroom naked.

Then a shriek stops him in his tracks, and he almost runs back to the bathroom, thinking he’s traumatized one of Dave’s children, but he notices that the person sitting on his bed most definitely is not a child.

“Rodney?”

“Hi.”

“Thanks for the Tinnitus by the way. Appreciate it.”

“Oh, as if firing guns hasn’t already done that to you.”

“No, actually, it hasn’t,” John says dryly, and is surprised at how level and, well,  _ normal  _ his voice sounds, all things considered.

“Can you-- I--- With the--” Rodney splutters, gesturing at John’s body.

“Right.” John grabs a pair of boxers and puts them on, without much hurry. Then he sits next to a flushed, almost hyperventilating Rodney. If the circumstances had been different, maybe he’d have the time to take advantage of that interest, but as it was… “Why’re you here? Trying to get me that fifty grand?”

“Can’t turn me in if you can’t catch me, Sheppard.”

John looks around the room, then at Rodney, meaningfully. “I think I could manage to do that.”

“I need your help,” Rodney blurts out.

“My help?”

“I can’t… I need to get this-- this thing, you wouldn’t understand--”

“Alright,” John drawls, “You need to get a thing. Where do I come into play?”

“Well it’s…” Rodney manages to flush further, playing with his hands as if he can’t keep them still even when not talking. “They move their base often, but I’ve found a pattern. It took even myself a week, anybody else would’ve taken months if not more, and I--”

“You know where their base is,” John says, interrupting to speed things along. He knows how smart Rodney is, doesn’t need to be told every time the man opens his pretty mouth.

“Right. Yes. I do. And I, uh…” He shrugs. “My weapon is my intellect, my, my, my superior thinking. It’s not exactly…”

  
“You need muscle,” John concludes, and doesn’t know whether he’s flattered that Rodney chose him over Dex The Mountain, or offended that Rodney clearly thinks John doesn’t have the brain capacity of an actual partner in this mission. “And it probably doesn’t help that you’re a dead-or-alive proposition.”

“Are you mad at me?” Rodney asks nervously, as if noticing for the first time that John’s not acting all that friendly, after all.

“The man you killed was unarmed. You’re running away not just from the cult you were in, but the USAF and the police as well as  _ me.  _ Gotta say, McKay, you’re not earning many brownie points from where I’m sitting.”

“If… OK, at least if you help me, you, you… You can have the fifty grand. Five hundred, if you want, I’ve got no use for money here.”

“I’m listening,” John says. He lets Rodney think that this is about money, if that’s what he needs. Clearly he’s not here asking for help from an old friend.

“They have a pattern, every three, two, then four days. They shift clockwise twice, then anticlockwise three times, and so on. Of course, because of the inconsistencies of development sometimes they’re a few miles off, but--” He tears his eyes from the carpet and glances at John, then looks back down again. “Anyway. They have this thing that I need. We’ll have radios.” He hands a small earpiece to John. “So I’ll tell you who has it when I see it. Then you… You retrieve it. Then we run.”

“But you have an actual plan…?” John asks. “Just going in can’t be your plan. What’s to stop them all from running or shooting us dead? How many are there, do you even know?”

“Four, usually. Sometimes three. What they’re protecting it - it’s tiny, relatively speaking.”

“One of them got a flat nose?”

“How do you know about Kolya?”

John bites down a grin. He will  _ not  _ preen just because McKay’s a little bit impressed. “And your plan?” he asks, changing the subject.

“They’re in a trailer outside of a warehouse. We need to, to, draw them out. So they can’t drive away.”

“That’s a big ‘we’.”

“You said you needed the money,” Rodney says impatiently, sounding almost desperate.

“Fifty thousand changes my world,” John says slowly. It  _ is  _ true, sad as it is. He could pay off all his debt and, hell, the remaining would pay his rent for a year. “All right, I'm in.”

And just like that, Rodney’s back to talking with all the arrogance of a man who  _ isn’t  _ begging for help from an old friend he hasn’t talked to in decades. “We both know that the money’s secondary though, Sheppard. You’ve always been interested in playing the hero.”

“Keep flapping your lips, McKay. I'm in it for the cash.”

“Oh now I know that that's a lie,” Rodney says smugly.

“No matter what you think, I’m not interested in playing the hero--”

“He says, after joining the Air Force and dedicating his life to doing precisely that or what you  _ thought  _ was that.”

“I also quit, as you very well know.”

That does make Rodney pause. He looks up at John again, and this time his gaze lingers. Not just checking John’s body out like he’d been earlier, but staring at John’s face, as if looking for something. “Yes. You… You did.”

“And there’s no proof that helping you would be heroic in any way. For all I know, you’re a terrorist and have just asked me to help attack an innocent group of people.”

“I would-- I would never!” Rodney starts, scandalized, then stops. “Oh. Ha ha. Very funny, Sheppard.”

John’s laughing, he can’t help it. A flustered Rodney had always made him smile. “You’re just too easy, McKay.”

Rodney plays with his hands some more, and John’s about to make a snarky comment about being impressed that Rodney could shut up for a whole minute, when a different thought occurs to him. “You look like hell, by the way.”

Startled, Rodney blinks at him, mouth agape.

“I’ve been waiting a long time to say that, and mean it.”

Rodney looks at his tattered clothes, dirty hands and torn shoes, and chuckles nervously. “Wanna say it again?”

“Nah,” John says, sighing a little, and gets up. He takes a spare towel out of the cupboard, and hands it to Rodney, pointing towards the bathroom. “Take a shower. We can’t be in that much of a hurry. You can have breakfast with the family too, if you want. I can explain the, uh, misunderstanding to Dave.”

Rodney stares at the towel in his hands thoughtfully. “No one's been this nice to me in a long, long time.”

“What, no five star hotel treatment at the Air Force Cult Retreat?”

The joke doesn’t quite land, but Rodney chuckles half-heartedly anyway, and thanks John before disappearing into the bathroom. Soon enough, John can hear the water run, and doesn’t even bother trying not to think about what Rodney might look like, right now, just on the other side of the door, naked and wet. He’s probably trying to wash days of grease out of his hair and body, but in John’s mind Rodney’s already clean, enjoying the warm water, and tugging at his own cock gently, jerking himself off slow and languid.

~

Rodney comes out of the bathroom not just freshly showered and dress in his old ratty jeans and one of John’s discarded t-shirts, but with some sort of ball in his hand.

“Lift up your shirt,” he says without any preamble.

“Not even a ‘please’, Rodney? You’re breaking my heart here.”  His hand does instinctively go to the hem of his t-shirt, but he doesn’t take it off.

“Actually, just take it off,” Rodney says, walking closer. When John cocks an eyebrow in lieu of following his order, Rodney rolls his eyes. “Please,” he says, voice dripping with sarcasm.

It’ll do.

John takes his shirt off, and Rodney starts looking at his chest in a calculating manner. He feels suddenly self-conscious. He knows he looks alright, Rodney himself was checking him out earlier too, but… The scrutiny makes him feel uneasy nevertheless. A lot of guys shave their chests. Should he?

“I’m gonna need to start charging for the peep show soon, Rodney.”

“Oh come on,” Rodney scoffs. “This is strictly professional.”

“Right…”

“It’s a-a-a wire, alright?” Rodney says, and John gets the feeling that Rodney wants to call it something else.

Which makes sense, because the ball in Rodney’s hand - that he’s pushing onto his chest, right between his pecs - definitely doesn’t have any wire coming out of it, nor a slot for it. In fact, it’s sort of squishy, sticking onto John’s hair and skin.

“It’s our best option,” Rodney explains.

“Best option for what?”

“In case someone starts talking, we have it on tape. I… They won’t believe me otherwise and why would they? It’s insane.” He pauses mid-ramble before John can find out about what exactly the insane thing is. “For whatever reason, people talk to you. Maybe it’s the stoic silence, creeping them into being talkative.”

John shudders a little when Rodney’s right hand that’d been steadying his chest while his left hand was placing the wire-ball, squeezes John a little.

“Stand still, will you?” Rodney scolds him.

“I highly doubt anybody's gonna come out and incriminate themselves to me on tape, Rodney.”

“It’s also…” Rodney steps away, seemingly satisfied with his work. Then, instead of looking up at John’s face, he looks at the door. “I'm not just mic-ing you to record you,” he mumbles. “I'm doing this so I can hear you, in case they take the earpiece, or you can’t reach to it to turn it on. So I know you're safe.”

They have a wonderfully awkward dinner, but the Sheppards are used to that, and Dave navigates the conversation rather masterfully, John thinks, considering the fact that an alleged murderer is sitting at his breakfast table.

“Dr. McKay,” he greets Rodney, who’s scared momentarily before deciding that Dave’s safe, and holding out a hand.

“I hear you have food?”

“Manners, McKay,” John says warningly, but shares a knowing grin with Dave.

“I smell syrup! And coffee!” Rodney says indignantly, as if that’s an excuse.

“Here you go, Dr. McKay,” Dave says. “Wouldn’t want to get between you and your coffee. We don’t want The Wolfram Incident repeated now, would we?”

Rodney mumbles something into his coffee that John can’t make out, but his blush says it all. John makes a mental bookmark to ask him about later.

“Girls, pancakes!” Dave yells towards the kitchen door, and John hears the piddle paddle start up as the daughters slowly make their way downstairs, and Ayesha telling them something about t-shirts.

And that’s when they hear a loud explosion, making Rodney spit out his coffee, and John’s hand go to his holster-less thigh.

Dave makes a shocked sound, then says “Something wrong with somebody’s exhaust?” They go out to see.

It’s Rodney’s car. It’s on fire from what looks to have been a bomb. John glances at his watch, it’s just after eight, when he’d usually leave for his daily Rodney Search routine around the Atlantis compound.

Someone’s tried to kill him.

“They blew up my car…” he says slowly.

“Excuse me, whose car?” Rodney says, voice high.

“Your car,” John concedes. “You want it back?”

That’s when they start hearing sirens, and Rodney sighs. “Must you live so close to the police? Honestly, Sheppard.” He finishes off his coffee while Dave and John stare out the window. “I’ll meet you there. Obviously I can’t be here while they…”

John nods, and Rodney quickly makes his exit.

~

Despite the siren sounds, it takes the police almost ten minutes to actually arrive, setup the perimeter and start questioning the family. Dave makes sure the girls are first, very quickly telling the officers that they didn’t see anything, only heard it. His wife Ayesha is next, but she lingers behind after the girls have left.

Dave’s trying to explain to her that no, John isn’t in  _ that  _ kind of trouble, but honestly… he kind of is. Especially once the SGC members arrive, there’s no talking her out of kicking John out. He can’t even begin to blame her, is surprised it wasn’t the first thing Dave said to him as soon as Rodney sat down in their kitchen.

John sighs, watching the SGC officers politely tell the police to get lost. A few are already taking notes and pictures, ignoring the police. Then his phone rings.

“Hello?”

“Where the hell are you, Sheppard?”  For all his talk of headsets and radios, Rodney still seems to prefer a phone. John moves a few more inches away from the crowd, hoping Rodney doesn’t start yelling.

“At Dave’s. A real mess here. The Air Force dropped by too. Anyone you want me to say hi to?”

The notetaker closest to him, a woman with an American patch on her arm for some reason, turns her head towards John sharply.

“My dad,” John lies lamely. “He loves a good bombing, and has a thing for uniforms. What’re you gonna do?” He gives her a smile and walks inside the house.

“Two miles  _ tops,”  _ Rodney says angrily into John’s ear. Although John’s glad for the lack of yelling, it also freaks him out a little, hearing Rodney be angry about something without uncontrolled rambling. One thing hasn’t changed though, Rodney still scarcely makes sense.

“What’re you talking about, McKay?”

“Your transmitter. Its range isn’t-- It isn’t my best, alright? In my defense, I’ve had  _ much  _ too little time and resources, and it’s been years since I’ve had to work with Earth technology at all. Although it’s a quite interesting alloy of--”

“There a point to this, McKay?”

“Right. Yes. We have to stay within a couple miles of each other. If I can’t hear you, I…” John doesn’t find out what Rodney can’t do if he can’t hear John, because Rodney cuts himself off. “Look, I have to throw this phone. I stole it from a Starbucks counter and I-- I’m going to just throw it onto the ground nearby. I can’t do this again.”

“Alright,” John says slowly, packing his duffle bag absentmindedly. At least he’s paid his rent now, but he can’t really go back to his apartment. Maybe he could leave his bag at the station, tell Barbara he’d pick it up later.

“You’ve gotta keep letting me know where you are,” Rodney says, almost firmly. John wonders how Rodney handles the minions he’d spent a few minutes berating when they’d talked last. He sure doesn’t sound in command. Then again, a cult isn’t a military base, he probably doesn’t need to. “Sheppard?” Rodney asks, when John’s been quiet for too long.

“Right. Well,” he says, stepping out of the room and walking away. “If you gotta know, I’m headed over to get Dave’s car from where I parked it. It’s parked on some asshole’s parking spot, I’m worried I’m gonna get fined for it.”

It takes Rodney only a few seconds to catch on. “Right. OK. That’s close. I can do that. Then we’ll go from there?” He pauses, and John can  _ hear  _ him frown. “Might be too dangerous. I probably shouldn’t. I… We could meet in the middle? Meet me over on…” John hears some rustling - does Rodney have a  _ map?  _ “Stark?”

“Can’t wait,” John says with a sarcastic tone, but he really is sort of looking forward to it, in a twisted way. It’s not just seeing Rodney again, either. He feels… He feels useful again. Like he’s doing something important.

“Nice talking to you too,” Rodney huffs, and hangs up.

“Anything else you need from me?” he asks the Air Force Lieutenant talking to Dave about the clean-up. The Lieutenant turns around to the Major behind him who shakes his head, and they let John walk out with his little duffle bag.

John doesn’t exactly say goodbye to Dave, but he knows his tight smile and nod say enough. They say thank you for the help and for putting up for this crazy shit for me. And for the car you haven’t brought up even though it’s worth my old Air Force salary several times over.

~

John takes Dave’s Ferrari out of “Dr. Rodney McKay PhD, PhD”’s spot. Because of  _ course  _ Rodney had gotten two doctorates and of  _ course  _ he’d bothered to have it painted on his parking spot.

He only feels slightly bad about leaving the empty spot behind, knowing Rodney’s own car’s sizzling away outside his brother’s house. What a mess…

John’s no stranger to getting envious looks at the gas station - he’s always had a thing for driving pretty cars that could easily double the speeding limit on the highway. But now that he’s trying to lay low, he regrets not borrowing Dave’s Lexus again. Once he picks Rodney up, they need to fade into the background…

Just as he’s tipping the gas station attendant, a man catches his eye. Him and his friend are loading barrels into the back of a van, but that’s not the most interesting part. He has a flat nose.

_ Think I just found our guy,  _ he thinks, and he’s glad for the ease with which he keeps a calm face. Rodney would’ve been jumping up and down like a chiuaua.

“Hey, uh, who’s that?” he asks the attendant casually.

“Who’s who, sir?”

“That guy over there,” he points with his head. “With the flat nose.”

“Oh. Uh. Cole, I think? He owns a farm nearby, or so I hear. Maybe he just works there.”

“What's he taking? What's in the barrels?”

The attendant looks at John as if he’s a little slow. “Gas,” he says, and yes, John  _ does  _ feel slow. What else would they buy?

“Just, uh, wondered if it was diesel,” he tries to recover. The attendant shrugs and walks away, wishing John a good day.

When he’s back in the car, John puts a hand to his chest, even though he knows being half an inch closer won’t make the transmitter work any better. “McKay, you better be listening.”

He hears a muffled sound, sort of like a cell phone buzzing. It’s coming from his jacket, even though his phone’s by his side. It makes more sense when he finds the earpiece Rodney’d given him in his jacket pocket. No, it’s not vibrating. Well, not the way a phone would. It’s vibrating because Rodney’s  _ yelling  _ from it.

“SHEPPARD? SHEPPARD? JOHN?”

John holds the earpiece a few inches from his ear. “Stop shouting or I’m not putting this thing in, McKay,” he says calmly.

The screaming stops instantly. John hopes it’s not because Rodney’s thinking of some sort of sexual innuendo. No, probably not. Rodney’s probably grown out of the horny teenager mindset. It’s John whose mind keeps going there.

“Alright, I’m listening.” he says, once the earpiece is in. It’s surprisingly comfortable.

“Where are you?”   
  


“I was getting gas. Look, change of plans.”

“No. This ‘plan’ it’s-- it’s like bike with a wobbly wheel and no gears, we can't turn it around!”

“It’s like a-- What?” Did Rodney seriously just make a  _ bicycle  _ metaphor, of all things?

“I thought using a bicycle would make it simple enough for you. See, if you have no gears on a bike, then--”

“Yeah thanks I don’t need you to explain the metaphor. I meant what are you talking about?”

“The plan is shoddy as it is! You can’t go changing it!”

“But Kolya’s here,” John says and he is  _ not  _ pouting.

“Oh. Why didn’t you just say  _ that?”  _ Rodney scolds him.

“If you’d let me  _ speak,  _ maybe I would’ve.” God, Rodney’s just as annoying as he’s always been. Had John really thought that Rodney might’ve grown up in last couple of decades? “Yeah, I see him and his friend loading gas barrels into a van. They look just about done. I was going to suggest I follow him, and try to pick you up on the way, or meet up wherever they end up.”

The line’s quiet for a bit, and John waits for Rodney to formulate an adjusted plan. Or maybe he’s just recalculating their chances of survivals, how would John know? Rodney’s always been loud, so John’s never had to learn to read his silences.

“Ok. Ok. They’re probably going to the hide-out anyway. I’ll get in a cab, be on my way there. If they look like they’re not going there, you let me know.”

“Alright then,” John says, rolling his eyes. Let Rodney pretend he’s in charge. John waits a few minutes after the van takes off, pretending to text on his phone, then takes off after them, trying to keep as much distance between them as possible because  _ honestly, I’m trailing someone in a  _ **_red Ferrari._ ** _ This is exactly what I was trying to avoid. _

After about half an hour, the van drives up to the warehouse Rodney’d mentioned, but of course John can’t get that close. He parks a mile away, and tells Rodney where he’s waiting. Rodney only takes a few minutes to arrive, and they start walking towards the warehouse.

They’re less than twenty yards from the place when they hear the van’s engine start. John grabs Rodney and they hide behind a tree, laying down on the ground. Once the van’s off in the distance, John gets up.

“Oh, I can get up now, can I?” Rodney huffs, getting up and making a show of inspecting his arms. “You can’t just throw me around like that, you know. I have a bad back, you could’ve-- Ow ow actually maybe you  _ have.”  _ He makes some weird stretching motion with his arms behind him, like some sort of yoga pose. “This is undoing years of physiotherapy. Thanks for that.”

“You’ll get over it,” John says, rolling his eyes. “Come on, let’s go.” He starts back towards the car.

Rodney shakes his head. “No, we have to get to the trailer.”

“But they just left.”

“Even better! The point isn’t to catch them, or else-- Oh why am I even  _ trying  _ with a flyboy? Honestly.” He looks John dead in the eyes and starts speaking in that condescending tone of his, again. “We must go warehouse. Object still there. OK?”

“I have a gun, you know,” John points out, gritting his teeth.

“Right. Well.” Rodney seems a bit chagrined, but does not apologize. “I still have to retrieve it. Us, I mean. We have to.”

There’s no one in the trailer that they can make out from the shadows, and no sound coming out either.

“I don’t see anybody,” Rodney says.

“Sssh!” John hisses. “Quiet.”

When they go in, with John in the front and Rodney on his six, there really is no one in there. Not much within, either. A few empty pots on the electric stove, and an unmade bed on the far end.

Rodney takes out some sort of pad. “Alright, let’s see where they’re…” He starts pointing the pad around. John has to assume it’s some sort of scanner, and he lets Rodney do his thing, standing guard by the door.

“It’s curious, really. Hmmm, why would they? Interesting.” Rodney keeps an ongoing commentary as he glances around. There won’t be any ‘quietly disappearing’ movie scene with Rodney around, that’s for sure.

Which doesn’t, of course, mean that they’re safe. Suddenly, John gets hit on the side of his face, hard. His ear’s ringing still as he turns around to face his attacker.

“Dex?”

“Know you have him,” Dex says, voice low and dangerous. “MCKAY!” he yells out.

“Look, buddy, let’s talk about this, we can… We can split the bounty…”

Instead of answering, the man actually  _ growls  _ \- and no, John didn’t know that actual human beings really did that - and lunges at John. They tackle on the ground and John’s combat training is the only reason his skull isn’t already crushed. He wonders idly why Dex isn’t using his gun. He knows why he’s not, he sees no reason to kill Dex, but Dex seems mighty angry at John.

“MCKAY!” John yells this time. “A LITTLE HELP HERE!”

Dex looks confused for a moment at that, long enough for John to flip them over and get some oxygen into his lungs. They continue trashing about for a few more minutes, and their fight consists mostly of John running just far enough to survive, but not far enough that he risks Dex going after Rodney instead.

Rodney’s staring at them from the trailer’s door, mouth gaping.

“ANY TIME NOW!”

“I-- I--”

Dex lands a really good blow right into John’s stomach and he falls back with an ‘oof’. He has a feeling that even if he hadn’t been a pilot, and had hand-to-hand combat training the way SWAT teams do, he still would’ve been no match for this guy. Honestly, where does he get the strength from?

“Crap! Right! The stunner!” Rodney shouts at them, and starts digging in his messenger bag for it.

As he digs through, John manages to cough and roll over enough to avoid Dex’s next attack. They start wrestling, and John wonders if he should start a timer in his head to see how many minutes he can actually keep this up.

“Scanner. Powerbar. Pencil.” Rodney keeps listing off things as he throws them out of his bag, as if it matters.

“Do something, McKay!”

“I’m looking for my stunner! I know it’s here!” Before John can curse at him, he continues. “OH! Found it!”

John waits for Dex to drop onto the floor, but nothing happens. Or, rather, their wrestling continues.

“Ronon?” Rodney calls out. “I don’t want to stun you. Please don’t make me stun you.”

Dex turns to look at Rodney. “You shouldn’t be here. With him. Too dangerous.”

Rodney sighs, and says with a frown: “I’m not comfortable with this.”

“YOU’RE not comfortable, McKay?” John complains. He’s going to  _ kill  _ Rodney after this. Choke him with his own bare hands.

“You’re-- I know Conan the Warrior can take it, but you keep-- You won’t stay  _ still  _ and I don’t want to shoot  _ you…” _

“McKay if you don’t stun him in the next five seconds I swear--” he says, flipping himself onto his back on purpose, and holding onto Dex’s neck as hard as he can as Dex tries to stay on his hands and not fall.

Then John gets hit in the chest - and everywhere, really - with what feels like a truck, but is just Dex’s body weight. After closing his eyes and taking a few seconds to calm down, he pushes Dex’s unconscious body off of himself.

“Thank you,” he says at Rodney dryly.

“You’re welcome,” Rodney responds, and he’s so sincere that John almost stops glaring. Almost.

“Okay,” John sighs. “Okay.” He looks at Dex’s body. “I got this. I’ll bring the car over, put him in. You find whatever thing you’re trying to find.”

“The key. Right.” Rodney nods, and gets back inside to work.

By the time John’s run to the car, gotten it there, hauled Dex’s heavy body onto the tiny backseat, Rodney’s gone quiet.

He’s sitting at the desk, looking over notes in a language John doesn’t understand. It doesn’t look like any alphabet he’s seen. Rodney looks up when John clears his throat. The look on his face is more scared than John would’ve liked to have seen.

“No luck?” he asks.

“What?” Rodney sounds confused. “Oh, the… No I found the key, just…”

“What’s wrong?”

“They’re going to… They had another plan. That I didn’t realize. They think… They already have the box. They’re going to--” He runs a finger over a certain part of text, as if John can read it. “They’ll use the gas to blow up a hole into New Atlantis. They’ve found the edge of the shield. Just a meter or so, but it’s enough for them to get in, then…”

“What’s the box? And the key? Wanna tell me what’s going on, here, buddy?”

“The key…” He holds out a small device, very similar to O’Neill’s keychain. “It’s a unique key, and it opens a box. The box  _ could  _ be hacked of course, but it would take months for even someone as fluent in ancient code as I am. Most of it would have to be brute-forced. The Genii - the people we’re up against - they’d have no chance at it. So they needed the key.”

“Which they got thanks to a traitor. Radim,” John says. Rodney nods. “And what’s in the box?”

Rodney sighs the deep sigh of a man who’s lost a big battle. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Something very, very, intensely dangerous. I don’t even quite understand  _ why  _ the Genii want it unleashed. It’s… It’s end of the world sort of thing.”

“And we’re still here because…?”

“They need a key to open it.”

“And they left the key here…”

In typical fashion for John’s life, the pieces fall into place just a few seconds too late, and he hears the clicking of a gun right behind him.

“Nice and easy now,” an unfamiliar voice comes, and John starts raising his hands.

“It’s alright,” Rodney says, looking behind John with a bemused but not scared expression. “They’re SGC. We can explain things to him, or I can--”

“Alright, Dr. McKay, please step away from the desk. Hands up. Come on now.”

“What?” Rodney asks, dumbfounded. “Look, I don’t know which division you’re in, but you’ve gotta help us. Ask Major Carter and she’ll tell you--”

“Why don’t you go ahead and let your friend over here cuff you to the railing?” a second stranger asks, throwing Rodney a pair of cuffs.

“What’s going on?” Rodney asks again, and John hears a second gun’s safety being turned off.

“Maybe we should do as they say, Rodney,” he says, warningly.

“Alright, alright,” Rodney sighs, and John uses this as an excuse to turn around so he can see the strangers. As he cuffs Rodney to some sort of railing on the wall, John notices that the other two men aren’t strangers at all. One’s the cultist he’d seen talking to the General back in Atlantis, and the other’s a police officer. He doesn’t know his name, but he’d seen him, with his stupid rat tail, at the station. Just how convoluted is this mess Rodney’s in?

“What’s going on?” Rodney asks. “Clearly you’re not  _ hiding,  _ so why not just tell me? Why does an Athosian and a Tau’ri, of all people, work with the Genii?”

“We don’t work with the Genii,” the blond cultist says, grinning.

“Who then?”

“I don’t think we need to explain anything to you, Doctor. Now hand over the key, and we’ll be on our way.”

“Over my dead body!” Rodney says with more confidence than John would’ve guessed.

“In that case,” Rat Tail says, and lifts his gun towards Rodney.

“No! No! I… I didn’t mean  _ literally,  _ you neanderthals!”

_ Aaaand there’s the Rodney I know,  _ John thinks. He instinctively moves in front of Rodney, covering him, but Rat Tail pushes him to the side with his gun.  _ Fuck, this isn’t good. _

“You really have a habit for going where you’re not meant to go. Being where you’re not meant to be.  _ Sniffing around  _ where you have no business going,” Rat Tail accuses Rodney. And to be fair, that  _ does  _ sound like the Rodney John knew.

“Says the man working for  _ Kolya!”  _ Rodney snarls. “Honestly, haven’t we beaten down the Genii enough? Why can’t you just be our  _ allies?” _

“Told you, Doctor. Not Genii.”

“We’re with the Trust, Doctor. So just stop your futile attempts at diversion and hand us over the key. Unlike you, we’ve got a place to be.”

“The trust…” Rodney whispers. “That would explain why you want the snakes, but… Where does Kolya get into all this?”

“You know, it was selfish of you to involve Teyla,” the cultist says, stomping towards Rodney and grabbing his messenger bag. “You had no need to put her in danger for your foolishness.”

“Why would you want to help the Goa’uld?” Rodney asks earnestly, and makes no move to try to get back his messenger bag.

_ Good,  _ John thinks.  _ He must’ve put the key somewhere else then. But the stunner…?  _ He notices an oddly shaped gun on the chair by the desk. It looks like what a kid’s shop would sell as an alien gun. He bets that’s what the stunning thing is. He’s not sure how it works, but he bets it’s not all that complicated.

He doesn’t have long to think about it, though. Suddenly, there’s a commotion: He hears two gunshots before he even lifts his head, and lunges for the stunner, firing it once.

The two men are on the ground, and Dex is behind them, breathing heavily and looking even more menacing now than ever, somehow.

“OK, McKay?” he asks, and John  _ thinks  _ he’s smiling.

“Yeah, just…” Then John notices Rodney’s staring at John’s thigh. “You’ve been shot,” Rodney says.

John gives Rodney an exasperated look. For a man who used to complain for hours if he so much as stubbed a toe, Rodney’s oddly blase about John getting shot. “Thanks, Einstein.”

“Too bad,” Rodney says, looking at where blood is seeping through John’s pants. Feels like the bullet grazed the side of his ass, if John had to guess. Not much pain. “It was a pretty nice ass.”

“Ha ha. You here all week, McKay?” Then he sighs, looking at the blood on his pants. He  _ liked  _ these pants.

“You’ll make it, Sheppard,” Dex says, then takes the guns from the unconscious men.  “Let’s go, I’ve already called Sam, they should be in New Atlantis by now.”

“And did you tell her about the--” Rodney starts

“No, you can do that later if she doesn’t figure it out.”

“Anybody gonna get these off?” Rodney asks as Dex and John are leaving the trailer, rattling the cuffs.

John looks at him consideringly, then glances at Dex for assurance before saying. “Nah. Think you’re good as is.”

“You’re not really going to… SHEPPARD! NO!” McKay yells as they close the trailer door behind them.

Dex seems oddly onboard now with John, having understood that he’s on the Good Side - or what John  _ thinks  _ is the good side, at any rate - on Rodney’s side.

“OPEN THIS DOOR! THERE ISN’T ENOUGH OXYGEN IN HERE! DO YOU WANT ME TO DIE?” McKay’s yelling gets less and less loud as they drive away.

When they get to the compound, the SGC has everything under control. In fact, things seem so safe, that even Teyla has resurfaced from wherever she was hiding. O’Neill isn’t there this time, but Major Carter is, and he explains to John what had happened.

The Trust is apparently an organization that had convinced multiple aliens - Athosians and Genii - that having the Goa’uld in charge on Earth and take SGC’s resources would allow the Goa’uld to become powerful enough to defeat the Wraith for them in the Pegasus Galaxy. John listens to all this and tries not to say “you’re kidding me, right?” every two seconds.

Major Carter only laughs when she hears about Rodney being cuffed in a trailer with two dead men, and John isn’t sure whether it’s because she trusted Dex, or because she finds the image too funny to think practically.

“Bet he’s still yelling,” Dex tells her and yes this time there definitely is a smile on his face.

“It might be good for him to channel all that rage…” Major Carter says, smiling back. “Let it out a little.”

“Because he doesn’t,” Dex says, and they both laugh.

In his mind, John knows that Rodney’s safe, but he can’t quite  _ feel  _ it, yet. He needs to see it. He drives over - way, way over the speed limit, but he has a feeling he won’t get pulled over today - and sure enough, Rodney really still is ranting loudly in the trailer.

He doesn’t love the thought of leaving the Ferrari behind again, but sees no way out of it. He gets in the car attached to the trailer, and drives Rodney over to the station.

“WHAT? WHAT’S GOING ON? IS THAT YOU, SHEPPARD? THIS THING’S -- DON’T  **MOVE** WHEN I’M NOT-- I SWEAR I---”

John puts on “Daddy Sang Bass” on his phone, and turns up the volume as far as his phone can handle, and grins the whole way to the station. Sure, Rodney might’ve offered him five hundred grand cash to not take him in, but it’ll just feel sweeter watch Rodney’s face as he hands Rodney over to the police, and taking fifty for the bounty.

“Yeah, I got two dead bodies, an FTA, and a bullet wound,” John says calmly as Barbara greets him at the station door.

“Dead bodies, Sheppard?” she asks, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah. Air Force stuff. They’ll be here to pick them up shortly.”

“Right…” Barbara says slowly. “New Atlantis?”

“New Atlantis,” he says, nodding in confirmation.

“And the bullet wound?”

“Just a graze, actually. I can enjoy my victory lap without much pain.”

Banging comes from inside the trailer. “ARE YOU QUITE DONE?”

Barbara stares at John again, questioning.

“Here you go,” he says, opening the trailer door. “One Doctor Rodney McKay, PhD PhD, very pissed and awaiting his arrest.”

“What is  _ wrong _ with you?” Rodney screams, as John uncuffs him. He runs out of the trailer, but stops short when he sees the police. “Jesus, Sheppard! First the trailer full of dead bodies, now this? What’d you do this for?”

“Fifty grand. I told you a million times.”

“I told you I’d give you half a mil, you moron! Do you not understand that that’d be the smarter option?

“Well, yes, but the fifty grand comes with revenge on the side.”

“Revenge for  _ what?” _

“You know what, McKay,” John says, laughing, “You’ve been an asshole so many times, you take your pick.”

Rodney just frowns, looking so childish and put upon that John almost wants to hug him.

“Payback sucks.”

“This isn’t over, you know,” Rodney says, irritated.

“No?”

“Not yet. SGC will be here soon, and I’ll be out in no time. In fact, I bet they won’t even book me in.”

“He’s sort of right,” John tells Barbara after Rodney’s been taken inside the station. “But keep him on ice a while, will you? Let him cool his boots.”

“Geez, he's so mad,” Barbara says, looking after Rodney.

~

A few days later, Rodney - of course - shows up at John’s apartment. John doesn’t even pretend to be surprised, and just offers Rodney coffee.

“You look pretty good for someone who got shot,” Rodney says as he accepts the cup from John’s hands.

John tries not to think too hard about how he still manages to get butterflies in his stomach from a bare brushing of fingers. 

“‘For someone who just got shot’? I’m hurt, McKay,” he says, but he’s smiling.

He leans over the living room door frame and watches McKay fiddle with his cup for a while, obviously trying to think of what to say.

“Look, I…” Rodney says, then sighs. He gets up, putting the coffee cup down after just a sup, and takes out a pad from his messenger bag. “Just look,” he says, walking over to John.

John brushes his fingers over the pad and suddenly there’s a hologram in the middle of his living room.

“That…” Rodney looks just as surprised as John feels. “Alright, I guess  _ that  _ is a feature I didn’t know about. I’ll investigate later. Anyway, I wanted to show you…”

The hologram shows a spaceship. A small one, almost like a car, a passenger or small cargo ship. John doesn’t know how he knows - it certainly doesn’t look like any rocket he’s seen - but he does.

“So. Um. I thought…” Rodney mumbles. He takes a deep breath before speaking again. “If you join, you could fly. That. That’s a Gateship, it… Well, it goes through the gate, and it flies. Can go underwater too, actually, fascinating bit of technology, I…”

“You want me to join the Atlantis cult?”

“The Atlantis  _ what?  _ I mean yes, Landry isn’t wrong that we’re a little headstrong and independent, but I wouldn’t call it a  _ cult…” _

“What is it then?”

“It’s… It’s the hometown of the Ancients. In, in the Pegasus Galaxy. You could come. With us.” ‘With me’ remains unspoken.

John decides if Rodney can let go of a grudge, then so can he. He takes the pad and throws it over to the couch - “Hey!” Rodney protests - and walks up into Rodney’s personal space.

“And what do I get out of it?”

“I… What d’you mean? Another  _ galaxy!  _ And and flying again, and--”

John has a feeling there’ll be a much more vital perk. He nuzzles Rodney’s cheek, and Rodney gives a pleasing shudder at the act.

“What’re you--”

“You know, McKay, I think you’ve spoken quite a lot,” John says, grabbing Rodney’s neck gently, and pulls him into a kiss.

When they pull away for a break, Rodney’s staring at him with wide, blue eyes, and his face is flushed. John can feel his own hair disheveled from Rodney’s fingering it, and knows his face is a little red too. He grins.

“Right. Well. That’s… That’s certainly something the Pegasus Galaxy can offer.”

“Then count me in.”


End file.
